


True North

by purrfectj



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Battle Meditation, Ben is a hot mess but we love him, Body Confidence issues, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Force Bonds (Star Wars), Grey Jedi, Growing Up Jedi, Han is a good dad, I'm so sorry, Jedi Academy AU, Love in an Elevator, Rey is a BAMF, Smut, Time Skips, Trust Issues, Truth is subjective, bad things happen, comfort/hurt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-05-20 22:09:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 22,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6027118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purrfectj/pseuds/purrfectj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke is pretty sure he's helped raise an asshole. Ben is too much like Anakin, too prone to temper and arrogance, flirting with the Dark Side like a lover. He surrounds himself with sycophants and toadies and if he wasn't poised to be the first Jedi Knight out of Luke's Jedi Academy, if he wasn't Leia and Han's son, Luke thinks he might just write him off as a lost cause.</p>
<p>(A Jedi Academy AU where Ben isn't lured to the Dark, Rey is eventually a BAMF, and Jaina is a Skywalker instead of a Solo.)</p>
<p>Latest chapter: <em>Don’t think of the baby, don’t think of sticky fingers and your wife’s eyes in your son’s face and a little voice calling you Grampa.</em> From behind him came a deep-throated, feral snarl, more animal than human and Han hunched his shoulders forward as Luke pleaded, “She’s leading you into a trap! You can’t do this!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Welcome. Listen, this is shameless love for Ben Solo, a Ben Solo who is a hot mess but doesn't fall. And a female Jedi who seems like she's his anathema and is really, well...you'll see!

“Day! Day!” A little body, slender and quick, threw itself into the legs of the serious-faced almost-woman standing in front of Master Luke, the serious-faced Padawan who looked pleased rather than startled as the interloper crawled up her body like a monkey until dirty, insistent hands could squeeze her already round cheeks rounder and bright, excited changeable hazel eyes could beam into calm grass green. “Day, Day, I get to come live with you an’ Benny now! I’ma be a Jedi!” 

“Rey! Rey!” the Padawan returned, her arms coming up to curl under the bottom of the little girl to steady her, leaning forward so she could rub tip-tilted nose to a smaller, sharper one, and the serious face cracked to reveal a sweet, dimpled smile. “Master Luke was just telling me you’d be joining us. Congratulations.” 

“Breha Solo. Did we raise you with no manners?” Leia Organa-Solo’s voice was gently scolding and exasperated as she followed her active young daughter at a more sedate pace, her husband rolling his eyes behind her back and making a silly face at Rey and Dayana that had the younger girl giggling and the older snorting out her bawdy laugh. 

For his part, Luke had to turn away for a moment to cover his own laugh in a cough at his brother-in-law and niece’s antics. Two peas in a pod, those two, and it was a wonder he and Leia had ever convinced Han that he had to leave his precious little girl in the hands of the Jedi. 

“Day loves me,” Rey said confidently, shoving her head, covered in messy golden brown hair, up under Dayana’s chin. Dayana hummed an affirmative and tried a tentative smile for their famous guests, her cheeks a becoming pink. 

“It’s nice to see you again, Dayana,” Leia said warmly and the Padawan inclined her head in formal acknowledgment. 

“You as well, Senator, Mister Solo.” 

“How many times I gotta remind you to call me Han?” Han teased gently with his trademark smirk. “That Mister Solo stuff makes me feel ancient.” 

“Well, dad, you _are_ old.” 

Luke tried not to sigh as the smile fell away from Dayana’s face as his nephew strolled up, all long-limbed, easy grace and arrogance, a strange mixture of his mother and his father with a scorn for those not as strong as him in the Force that was all his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker. At twenty, Ben Solo was poised to be the first Jedi Knight produced by Luke’s Academy. There were days, particularly ones like today before his family had arrived, that Luke wondered if he was also destined to be the biggest asshole produced by his Academy. 

Ben was a good looking young man. Not only was he tall, with long arms and long legs, he was leanly muscled with a kind of dark, brooding appeal that Luke suspected he’d also inherited from his grandfather: wild black hair kept a little too shaggy, brushing his shoulders when he wasn’t training, a long, expressive face with a mobile, lush mouth, hawk nose, and big, intense, almost black eyes surrounded by long, thick, curling dark lashes. He also, unfortunately, _knew_ he was a good-looking young man, and used it to his advantage. Charming, handsome, with a bitingly sarcastic wit and undeniable talent with a lightsaber and the Force, he was a favorite among most of the Padawans. 

Except with Dayana. Dayana, only two years younger than him, with her quiet, bookish nature, her tendency to meditation and Force healing, her affinity with small children, and her carefully hidden, easily bruised heart. The heart Ben tore a little more every time he was partnered to spar with her or work on a project with her or set to patrol with her and he complained, complained about her attention to detail and her endless adherence to rules and her expectations of perfection. “She’s like a protocol droid! She knows all the languages but she has no idea how to speak them.” 

Dayana who was awkward and shy and uncertain, her body having bloomed much too early among the lithe, athletic forms of the other Padawans, so early that there had been a lot of unkind words about her hips and breasts, unkind words Luke let go unchecked much to his regret. And though Dayana had grown into her curves and continued to grow into a lovely young woman, her face heart-shaped and sweet, her limbs as leanly muscled as Ben’s if more petite, her mouth a lovely pink bow and her dark green eyes surrounded by lashes as dark and long and curling as Ben’s, her hair a long tumble down her back of brown shot with red, she was still sensitive to the comments that had never really abated or the knowledge that she was never going to be long and lean and athletic. Ben made an exaggerated motion with his hands, suggesting a much heavier figure than Dayana’s, and rolled his eyes. “How she thinks she’ll ever be good with a ‘saber with that body is beyond me. Less meditating and more thrusting, I say.” 

Too bad for Dayana that she’d been standing right outside the doorway to the mess and hadn’t missed Ben’s scathing assassination of her character and of her body or the laughter of the handful of sycophants Ben kept around him. Too bad for Luke that she’d run headlong into him, her pretty face clenched down tight as she fought back tears, and he’d had to encourage her to sob out the whole story into his robes before tucking her gently into her favorite meditation spot on the banks of a the lake under a willow. “Feel the Force, Day,” he’d admonished her gently, using the nickname only Rey had for her, and it had taken all of his willpower and an hour with his own practice ‘saber to keep from taking a stick to his nephew. 

“Not that old. I could still kick _your_ ass, kid,” Han said and patted Ben on the back when he scowled and shoved his hands into the pockets of his training robes. 

“Day could kick your ass, too, Benny!” Rey said brightly, peeking out from under Dayana’s neck at her brother, her grin wide and cheeky and full of teeth. Aside from family, Dayana was Rey’s favorite person. She’d known Dayana since she was a baby, when Han and Leia had brought their tiny new infant and their sullen ten year old to the Academy and Dayana, always fascinated by small, wild creatures, had taken to Rey and Rey to her. Over the years when the Organa-Solos visited, Rey would crawl all over her brother with shouts of glee and loud, smacking kisses and then be handed off gratefully to a hovering Dayana who would take her on adventures in the library, in the forest, at the lakeshore, the two always returning sunburnt and windburnt, Rey passed out and Dayana smiling as if the sun had paid her a personal visit. 

It nettled Ben that someone as quiet and still as Dayana appealed so much to his energetic, bright, laughing sister and so he was sharper than he intended when he drawled, “Kicked her ass yesterday, didn’t I?” 

Rey gasped and leaned back as far as her little arms would allow to look up at Dayana. “Was Benny mean to you, Day?!” 

Dayana ran her fingertips lightly over Rey’s ribs and shook her head, determinedly ignoring Ben’s smug expression. Their bout the day before had not been an easy victory whatever Ben wanted to imply, and she wasn’t about to be ashamed of her good showing. That she’d been forced to yield when she’d felt her emotions rising up from the pit of her stomach to take control only proved she was mastering herself, focusing better. “Your brother is much better with a ‘saber than me.” 

“But you can push things with the Force! You shoulda knocked him down and then kicked him.” With this pronouncement, Rey said, “Daddy, catch!” and hopped from Dayana’s arms to her father’s waiting ones, wiggling around until she was perched on his shoulders, her hands fisted in his hair. 

“That’s called a dirty trick, darling. I would imagine Uncle Luke did not raise Dayana to think like a criminal.” At Han’s arch look, Leia laughed and shrugged. “What? You can’t deny they’re your children.” 

“And yours,” he pointed out, leaning in for a kiss that had Dayana sighing, Rey giggling, and Ben rolling his eyes. 

Luke chuckled. “And we’re all related. Now that’s settled, let’s see about finding a place for Rey. I bet she’d like to have dinner with her new friends.” 

“Yes, yes!” Rey agreed, bouncing up and down on her father’s back. “I like people.” 

“We know, tooka,” Ben said, squeezing the little leg nearest him lightly. “We know.” 

“If you’ll excuse me, Master Luke, everyone?” Dayana asked quietly but Luke shook his head, stalling her with an uplifted hand. 

“Wait, Padawan, I have a request. Ben, if you would take your family down to the barracks, get Rey settled, and then you and your parents meet me at my house, please.” 

“Sure. C’mon, it’s all down this way.” 

Obediently, Leia slid her arm into Han's and with Rey slipping over to ride piggy-back on her brother, the family set off toward the youngling area, Rey chattering away. 

For his part, Luke kept his eyes on Dayana’s face in the gathering twilight, his head tilted slightly to one side. “You do know that you’re one of my most skilled Padawans, whatever others might say.” 

She shrugged a shoulder and smiled a little though her eyes remained sad. “Thank you, Master Luke.” 

He reached out and laid his mechanical hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently, aware that she didn't flinch away from the touch. “I know the respect of your peers might mean more and I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done, or not done, in the past to make it harder for you.” He sighed. “I’ve made a decision regarding who will be in charge of this new class, Rey’s class, of younglings.” 

The new class was a hotly debated topic among the older Padawans. The Academy was new yet with only a handful of staff and two other instructors, Mara and Natloia. Though the three adults taught to their strengths, each of them were responsible for the well-being of one group of Padawans and had been since the school's inception. Luke's group, the oldest, were mostly ready to graduate, and he knew he would be a fool not to pick the best from among them as instructors, ask them to stay. He also hoped if he did, he could appoint one of them to take his place as the head of this new class. He and Mara, married years ago, were ready to start a family of their own, finally, and he had offered to be the one to step back from teaching to raise their children. He couldn't do that in good conscience without someone he trusted, someone he knew would weigh every decision carefully. 

Yamilet, Ben's current favorite, hoped to be given just that responsibility. She wanted to impress his brash young nephew, Luke knew, by making Rey her pet, wanted to make his parents fall in love with her so Ben would fall in love with her, as well. If that had not been her only motivation, if she had any inclination toward instruction or discipline or caring for young spirits new to the Force, Luke would have considered it despite his misgivings. But then he'd spoken to Leia, Leia who saw more than he gave her credit for both within the Force and without, and her counsel had been to look no farther than the awkwardly shy girl who already took herself off to the youngling end of the Academy when given the opportunity. “She loves Rey but she doesn't coddle her. I would trust her with my daughter, Luke, just as I've trusted you with my son.” 

So he sighed again, feeling as if he were doing the best thing for his students and the worse thing for this young girl, this young girl he'd found because she'd been using the Force to heal the villagers so she could eat after her parents had been killed in a border dispute, this young woman he'd helped raise from the time she was eight. “It would please me greatly if you would agree to take the mantle of leadership for this class of Padawans.” At her surprised gasp and wide eyed stare, he said, quietly, “I will raise you to the rank of Sage, with all of the rights and responsibilities and privileges that entails, including your own living quarters.” Lifting his metal hand from her shoulder, he cupped her cheek. “You make me proud, Dayana.” 

Ben, having headed back toward his uncle to let his friends know he wouldn't be around until later, watched with scorn and envy as Luke smiled at Dayana, told her he was proud of her. He'd never said that to his nephew, his nephew who could run circles around most of his peers in Force ability and with a 'saber, who Uncle Luke was always cautioning against brash behavior and arrogance and relying too heavily on his emotions and not enough on control, Uncle Luke who doted on Dayana with her calm center, her interest in lectures and the past, her unwavering, iron control. _Typical_ , Ben thought with an inward snort. He turned and stalked back the way he came, fists clenched at his side. 

Dayana had seen him, staring at her and Master Luke through the trees, his eyes angry, his posture rigid. 

_Of course_ , she thought with a sigh. Outwardly, she said only, “Thank you, Master Luke. I will do my best to reward your faith in me.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She wiped the tears that she shed only in private, only when she was alone, from her cheeks, stood, and stretched, a slow roll from toes to hips to shoulders to fingers and back again. She was just odd. An odd girl who liked odd things and who had an odd figure for a Jedi. Maybe, she thought wistfully, some day there’d be someone who would come along and find her oddness endearing. Bolstered if not particularly comforted by the thought, she stepped out of the little glade, onto the path, and headed back toward the compound. Secure in the knowledge she was alone, she trailed Force energy in her wake, causing the flowers along the path to bloom in a riot of reds and golds and purples._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of these chapters will be short. Like this one. Poor Day. (I took pity and added more. Sorry not sorry.) Maybe poor Ben, too.

“Day, Day, did you see? I moved it!” Rey bounced excitedly up onto her toes, her hands clasped before her hopefully, and Dayana laughed and ran a hand lightly over the little three bun hairstyle Rey had adopted in the two years she'd been a student. At twelve she was terribly advanced, already capable of acrobatic feats with her practice 'saber that Dayana knew she'd never master, and though the Sage couldn't prove it, she was almost certain Rey spent most of her allotted meditation time actually running flight simulators in her head. Rey was terribly hard to stay angry with, however, her wide, bright smile, infectious enthusiasm, and eagerness to learn making her an almost ideal student. 

It didn't hurt that she was as cute as a button and liked to filch treats from the kitchens, sneaking them and herself into Dayana's house after lights out to cuddle and talk and generally be the bright ray of sunshine she was. After too many trips back to the dorms with the surprisingly heavy weight of the sleeping girl in her arms, Dayana had finally just given in and made a policy that anyone in her house after midnight standard time was allowed to sleep where they fell. 

She rarely slept in her house alone these days, little bodies littering the floor and sometimes crammed three wide in the narrow bed in her spare room. Since no one had complained about a lack of discipline, she supposed no one cared. It even seemed to amuse Luke and Mara, particularly when their own daughter started toddling toward Dayana any time she was nearby. 

Her life was full and rich and rewarding, the two years she'd been in charge of the Kessel Run (Rey's choice) group of Padawans had been ideal, idyllic, and her own connection to the Force was only strengthened as they grew. 

“You did, Rey. I'm very proud of you. Now off with all of you, 'saber practice waits for no Padawan.” 

The group of children went screaming away, Rey in the lead, and Dayana sank down onto a rock on the shore and dropped her head into her hands. “Feeling sorry for myself is a useless exercise,” she muttered. Sorry because of all of her peers, she was the only one who'd stayed in the end. The rest had gone off to be bodyguards and officers and pilots and she was here, twenty and alone. It wasn’t as if she _missed_ them, not really. Only one or two of them had been friendly, the vast majority of them wanting so badly to please Ben Solo and his group that his disdain for her had rubbed off on them, and Dayana thought she was enough like Master Luke that solitude was not necessarily a terrible thing. 

She wiped the tears that she shed only in private, only when she was alone, from her cheeks, stood, and stretched, a slow roll from toes to hips to shoulders to fingers and back again. She was just odd. An odd girl who liked odd things and who had an odd figure for a Jedi. Maybe, she thought wistfully, some day there’d be someone who would come along and find her oddness endearing. Bolstered if not particularly comforted by the thought, she stepped out of the little glade, onto the path, and headed back toward the compound. Secure in the knowledge she was alone, she trailed Force energy in her wake, causing the flowers along the path to bloom in a riot of reds and golds and purples. 

Ben Solo, recently returned from working a legitimate business opportunity (smuggling run) with his father and his Uncle Chewie, here for research, twirled the heavy hilt of his 'saber in his hand and watched her hip-swaying walk until she passed out of his sight. 

OoO

“Benny!” Rey threw herself at her brother when he appeared suddenly at the door of Dayana's small cottage at dinnertime, almost bowling over her teacher in her eagerness. Dayana stumbled, grabbed at the doorframe, and didn't even bother to smile as Ben swung his sister up. 

“Stop growing, Reyzer!” he teased, pretending to stagger under her wiry, solid weight, careful to keep his eyes on his sister and not the woman watching him with wary eyes the color of late spring grass. Without even bothering to ask, unsure of his welcome, he shouldered past her into the house, aware that she kept any part of him from brushing against any part of her as he did so. The door clicked closed quietly behind them as he twirled Rey around the living area, tossing her as he used to do when she was half as tall and eliciting the same sweet, high-pitched giggles even as he took in the shelves of books and crystals and holocrons, the small hearth with its potential for a cheerful fire, the comfortably overstuffed couch and armchairs, the evidence of little people everywhere, including a Rebel fighter pilot doll he knew was Rey's in pride of place on the mantel. 

“You smell like Daddy,” Rey whispered wistfully, laying her cheek on his shoulder, fingers twirling in the black curls at the back of his neck, and Ben patted her, laying a kiss on the top of her head. 

“The Falcon always did have a foul stench, as Mom would say.” Ben tickled her lightly along the ribs. “You a Jedi yet, Rey Rey?” 

“I moved a _whole pile_ of rocks today!” Rey exclaimed, changeable eyes wide and excited. She leaned around him to her teacher. “Didn't I, Day?” 

“You did.” Dayana wondered what Ben saw as he looked around her living space. Small, certainly, messy even more so, but it was a home. Perhaps not as grand as some he'd seen since he'd gone haring off for adventure but she'd stayed and this was the result. She would allow no shame. “Are you staying for dinner, Rey, or would you like to take your brother back to the mess?” 

Rey pulled a face. “The mess has stinky, yucky food. You have blue milk and cookies.” Rey's voice dropped into what a twelve year old might consider a whisper as she pulled her brother's ear down to her mouth. “Day lets me live with her even though she's not 'sposed to. And she makes _really_ good cookies.” 

Ben raised an eyebrow and tried a charming smile which caused Dayana to stiffen, those big green eyes surrounded by lashes as long and dark and almost as ridiculous as his turning from wary to insulted. “I do a lot of things I’m not supposed to do, my Padawan. Dinner should be ready shortly.” She swept away into the kitchen, as regal a dismissal and invitation in one as Ben and Rey's mother had ever conveyed. 

“She doesn't like you very much, Benny,” Rey said sadly, her little sunburst face pitying. 

“No,” he agreed. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She jerked and wavered, brushed clumsily against the baby, safe and snug and smug in its little nest and only Luke's hand on her shoulder kept her from pitching forward into her own dining table. “Montra fruit,” she breathed, her face on fire, carefully avoiding Luke's searching glance and Mara's knowing one, focusing on Rey who was watching her with a little frown between her sandy brows, feeling Ben like a throb between her legs where behind her he'd gone unnaturally still. “Stop eating the montra fruit and she says she'll stop making you sick.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double-check you didn't miss part of chapter 2. I posted a really short one and then added extra because...I couldn't help myself. Heh. Thanks for reading!

Dinner was noisy, chaotic, and overwhelming. A handful of Padawans, Twi'lek and Zabrak and human, shuffled in and out, grabbing bowls and handfuls as they came and went out the back door. All of them stayed a moment or five to listen to some fantastic story Ben was spinning for Rey where she held court from his lap like the princess their mother had been. Dayana kept the food warm, made sure Rey had her cherished cookies and blue milk, and paused every so often to check a bandaged arm or offer sympathy for a failed attempt at telekinesis or check a bruise from 'saber practice. She made mental notes on her little family: who was sulking more than they should or who made a sly comment about a fellow student or who needed an extra hour at meditation practice. By the time everyone had wandered away, either to the front room or back out to the barracks or off to do chores, leaving just Ben and Rey, Dayana was tired and ready for the hour she allowed herself after dinner to read or putter or daydream. 

“Unca Luke and Aunt Mara are coming,” Rey informed her brother and Dayana did her best not to let out a frustrated sigh. The look of commiseration Ben shot in her direction had her frowning in surprise as the back door opened and Luke and Mara stepped into the light, Jaina reaching out with grabby, chubby hands from her mother's arms. 

“Day, Day, Day!” the little girl, blonde haired and blue eyed and the miniature of her striking mother otherwise chanted and Dayana, aware her hour had slipped beyond her grasp, was reaching for her when Ben slid in smoothly, settling Rey into a chair and taking the confused toddler. 

“Let's let Day have a break, huh, little Ewok? Come let your cousin Benny see you.” He hoisted the girl high over his head and then buried his face in her belly, blowing on it to make her giggle and pull hard on his hair. She smelled like home, he thought wistfully, sweet and pretty and soft. 

Mara sank into a chair with a relieved sigh, reaching out to tweak Rey's ear as Luke smiled at Dayana. “She's been a terror all evening. We're happy to hand her over to anyone willing to take her.” 

“Being pregnant stinks,” Mara agreed, reaching out to pluck a cookie from Rey's plate, sticking her tongue out when Rey protested with a laugh. “Aunt Mara has privileges, Sunshine.” 

“Still sick?” Dayana asked, concerned, and Mara flicked her fingers as she took a hearty bite of the cookie. 

“Yes. I'd be grateful, Dayana, if you'd look.” Luke grimaced and took the last chair at the table, Ben too busy making blaster and lightsaber noises to an amused and fascinated Jaina to contribute to the conversation. “Unfortunately, this one is blocking me out.” 

“Jaina did, too, Luke,” Dayana reminded him gently, sinking down to her haunches next to Mara. “May I?” Mara jerked a shoulder but her green eyes, brighter than Dayana's own, were worried and wary. Closing her eyes, centering herself, Dayana opened herself to the Force, let it flow through and around and inside of her. She felt Rey as the sun, almost too bright to see clearly, nearly blinding, Luke as the moon, less bright and tinged at the edges with darkness, Mara as the stars, the pinpricks of light in the velvet blackness of space, Jaina as a hot, needlesharp point of power and grace, and as she searched, gently probing for the tiny little being inside of Mara, her consciousness brushed something seething, the swirling eddies of tornadoes and the fury and power of a tsunami. Interested, drawn, entranced, she sent tendrils of her power, her power that was the ocean, the slow, ponderous beat as it powered destruction, inexorable and unending, and heard Ben make a startled, husky exclamation deep in his throat, a sound that caused something low in her belly to writhe and dance. 

She jerked and wavered, brushed clumsily against the baby, safe and snug and smug in its little nest and only Luke's hand on her shoulder kept her from pitching forward into her own dining table. “Montra fruit,” she breathed, her face on fire, carefully avoiding Luke's searching glance and Mara's knowing one, focusing on Rey who was watching her with a little frown between her sandy brows, feeling Ben like a throb between her legs where behind her he'd gone unnaturally still. “Stop eating the montra fruit and she says she'll stop making you sick.” 

“Another girl,” Luke said with a wide, happy grin, diverted, and Mara groaned and smacked him on the shoulder. Only Rey continued to watch, her young but wise eyes darting from her teacher to her brother and back again as Dayana rose shakily to her feet and Ben buried his face in Jaina's neck. 

OoO 

Dayana was halfway through the sequences of Form VI, Niman, the almost black blade of her 'saber held in a guard position as she prepared a Force push, when the rustle of leaves alerted her to the presence of someone else in the glade. The roar of a lightsaber igniting heralded the sudden bull-rush from her left of Ben Solo and wondering why he'd bothered to make noise in the first place, ruining his advantage, she sent the Force push toward him in a focused, small arc, pleased when he had to plant his feet and even then skidding back a step. His grimace was surprise and interest when she immediately changed her stance, rising up onto the balls of her feet, clearly prepared for a retreat in the face of any counter-attack. “Makashi is meant for two blades,” he growled, swinging the angry red of his 'saber in a quick flick of his wrist. 

“And red blades are meant for Sith,” she returned, arching a brow when his face darkened ominously. “What's the matter, Solo?” she taunted. “Afraid of me?” 

It was the wrong (right?) thing to say as he suddenly came after her, his strikes ferocious and fast, nearly too fast to follow, the blade whistling as he whirled and slashed. _Vaapad_ she realized with a low hum of appreciation through the Force that had him faltering with surprise. It gave her an opening in the block, parry, jab routine she'd had to adopt, shoving the Force down through the soles of her feet and into the ground below him. She was prepared for the ground to shake and nearly laughed as he wavered in place, his hands out for balance. Feeling smug, she took a running step back and actually squeaked in surprise when he Force leaped into the air and flung his 'saber toward her, the heavy blade with its strange cross-guard vents missing her thigh narrowly enough that she smelled singed cloth. She couldn't pivot fast enough, the move always one she had trouble with, as he flew over her head, the 'saber landing in his hand, and she wasn't sure whether to be grateful or to scream in frustration when he deactivated it and tapped her on the back of the neck with the hilt. 

“Yield,” he said triumphantly and she powered down her own 'saber with a swipe of her thumb, leaning forward a little as she worked to catch her breath. “You've gotten better.” 

“You've been gone two years. Did you expect me to get _worse_?” She was surprised by her own swift comeback, surprised further when the corner of his wide, lush mouth curled up and his dark, dark eyes danced. 

“Makashi was not something I'd expect you to practice,” he admitted, sinking down into a stretch, arm and leg out, leaning slightly forward, with a grace she envied. She jerked a shoulder, uneasy with the way he was looking at her thoughtfully. “And your crystal. Is it really black?” 

She shook her head and gave in to her own muscles, carefully setting down her 'saber before lifting her arms over her head, palms together, legs slightly spread, tilting her head back to stretch the aching muscles of her back. “It's green. Two very dark green kyber crystals.” She tilted her head toward his lightsaber where he'd dropped it into the dirt. “Cracked?” 

“Yeah,” he admitted with a sigh, shaking his head. “The crystal necessitated the design.” He twisted, switching sides, and she was so busy not looking at him, she missed how he watched her as she bent forward slowly at the waist, palms flat on the ground, ass in the air. 

“It looks heavy, like you should use both hands to wield it effectively.” Her voice was slightly muffled by her pose, thankful the robe she was wearing didn't gap at the neck, showing him much more of her than she'd like. 

“It...” He hesitated, caught halfway between one stretch and the next, his long limbs at odd angles. “It fights me,” he said finally, grimacing. 

She sank down onto her knees, leaning back on them as she reached her arms out in front of her. “No,” she disagreed. “I think you're fighting yourself.” His frown grew deeper as he turned out his toes and sank down, elbows balanced on his thighs. “Vaapad requires you to channel the darkness inside of you. It can be fueled by rage, by pain, by any dark emotion, but you have to accept that the darkness is yours, have to let it flow and pound through you, have to embrace it.” She slid forward, arching her belly toward the ground, looking up toward the sky, a little groan escaping her as her vertebrae popped. Ben continued to frown as he sat, legs out in front of him, and reached for his toes. She envied how he curled his fingers around them and pulled, her own arms too short and her hip flexors always too tight. 

“Maybe you're right,” he said after a moment and the little quirk of his lips, the smirk she recognized as his father's, returned. It caused the ache and pleasant burn from the night before to return, to pulse low in her belly. “Wanna go again?” 

Two hours later, Luke found them sprawled in the dirt of the little glade, bruised, sweaty, filthy, and laughing. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She was drawn to him more than she wanted to admit. Drawn to his rare, wicked grin, drawn to the ferocity he displayed when they sparred, drawn to the his clever way of going around a problem rather than confronting it straight on, drawn to the long, lean lines of his body, the broad palms of his hands and the darkness lurking in his eyes._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  _Whatever he’d been before,_ this _Ben was interesting and made her body yearn._

He'd promised himself, and the friends waiting on him, he'd stay only two months. Two months to find the holocrons he needed, to make the necessary calculations, to gather the supplies. Two months stretched into three and it was in the fourth that Aunt Mara took him aside and asked him, bluntly, what his intentions were toward Dayana. He could have made a snide remark about being an adult, could have brushed aside her concerns with a laugh or a joke, could have even played stupid. Instead, he paused in the act of laying his hand over the little mound of Mara’s belly and shook his head, slowly, as his fingers splayed. “Her power calls to mine.” 

“She is nothing like you,” Mara protested quickly and rather than be insulted, Ben smiled humorlessly and let his hand finally settle, feeling the roll and kick he always received for his efforts. It was no secret that Mara distrusted him, Luke found him frustrating, his mother worried, and his father tried to ignore the whole blasted mess: the red blade, the easygoing manner that hid a quick, spewing temper, the arrogance. They were all marks against him, marks that he was more like Anakin Skywalker, like _Darth Vader_ , than anyone found comfortable. 

Except Dayana. Whatever it was that she remembered from before, when he had been the center of the little universe of the Academy and she had been dismissive of and condescending to him, things were different now. She didn’t pull back or act disgusted when he talked of the Dark Side, didn’t discourage or judge, she listened. And she pushed him to be better, to ask why as well as how, to come at the problem of his preferred form of combat, his anger and his passion and his fear from a different angle entirely, pushed him with her wry comments and subtle digs and quick, agile brain and willingness to spar or argue or dig into some dusty holocron. 

Acceptance. Dayana gave him a sort of acceptance when even his little group of friends who wanted to explore outside of the Jedi Academy’s rigid code of ethics and morals and teaching looked at it like a lark, like a joke, like a way to tweak the tail of their Masters rather than a serious course of study. 

“She’s not yours to take, Ben,” Mara said finally when he remained silent. 

Ben had never done well with someone telling him no. 

OoO 

Rey was perched on the counter in Dayana’s kitchen, kicking her bare heels against the doors and drawers while Dayana kneaded dough and daydreamed. “You changed your mind,” Rey said suddenly, drawing her legs up under her chin and wrapping her arms around them. 

“About what?” Dayana asked absently, sprinkling more flour on the sticky mess and then pressing her fingers in deeply, the motion putting her into a space much like meditation. Master Luke had offered her a droid when he realized she was doing more than just overseeing her class of twelve but Dayana found cooking and cleaning and general homemaking to her liking. A domestic Jedi. Another idiosyncrasy. 

“Benny.” Dayana didn’t imagine Rey expected a response. It was no secret that since his return, she and Ben Solo had been spending a lot of time together. He usually found her for an hour or two of sparring in the early morning, ate breakfast with her and her students, disappeared until he brought her lunch in the library where they spent another hour or two combing over some interesting holocron or map or other piece of lore or history one of them had unearthed, sat in on the afternoon class she taught to the oldest Padawans on Force healing, joined her for her afternoon meditation where they often ended up sparring again without their ‘sabers, had dinner at her house, and then stayed until late, leaving only when most or all of the Padawans had fallen asleep. If she’d had an extra bed not overtaken by students, she would have encouraged him to stay. 

If she hadn’t been so afraid of rejection, she might have invited him to share hers. 

She was drawn to him more than she wanted to admit. Drawn to his rare, wicked grin, drawn to the ferocity he displayed when they sparred, drawn to his clever way of going around a problem rather than confronting it straight on, drawn to the long, leanly muscled lines of his body, the broad palms of his hands and the darkness lurking in his eyes. 

Whatever he’d been before, _this_ Ben was interesting and made her body yearn. 

“He won’t…” Rey fumbled for a moment, fidgeted, gave in to the little nudge she was getting from the Force to tell the truth even when it might hurt. “He _can’t_ stay.” 

Dayana turned and smiled at Rey. “I know.” 

Rey tipped her head over onto her teacher’s shoulder. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Across the compound, Luke and Mara shared a look of distress and worry while Rey stilled in the middle of the sparring ground, her eyes huge in her suddenly bone white face and her practice 'saber hanging limp in her grasp._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here there be smut. It's sweeter than I was expecting. Dammit, Ben.

The first kiss was not as tentative as either of them had expected. She’d bested him sparring the one time out of five she could usually manage and she was sitting on his abdomen grinning foolishly down at him when he suddenly sat up and crashed his mouth into hers, arms banding around her back. She made a muffled sound and fisted her hand in his hair as his tongue swept into her mouth, tangling with hers, his large hands spreading open to nearly cover her back, pressing her down hard into his lap. She bit him, pulling at his lower lip, and reveled in the low groan he made in the back of his throat. 

“You gonna take me to bed, Solo?” she murmured when he leaned back from her and watched his nearly black eyes go blank with shock and arousal. She captured his fingers, pressed a kiss to his palm, placed it over her breast, over her heart. He took a rough breath in through his nose, his hand contracting, and Dayana rocked her hips, aware of the mechanics if not the specifics. 

They fumbled their way back to her house, kissing and touching, he pushing her up against a tree, the bark rough on her back, to ravage her throat with his teeth, his late afternoon stubble a pleasant burn and rasp on her sensitive skin, she shoving her hands up and under his robes until she could rake her nails across the muscles of his stomach, glorying in his guttural, “ _Fuck!_ ” 

He swept the house for curious or straggling Padawans while she locked the door, both with the Force and with the conventional identity scan, and he grinned when she squeaked as he swept her up into his arms, his hands on her ass, her legs curling around his waist. He carried her into the bedroom, their lips meeting in slow, deep kisses, and he continued to kiss her even as he laid her back on her bed and unwrapped her like a present, the outer robe, the inner, the leggings, the breast band and, finally, the scrap of cloth between her legs. “Shit, Day,” he said, kneeling at her side, his hands hovering over her, not sure where to touch first. The curves he’d disparaged so much when he was younger, the curves he might have fantasized about just like this once or twice, bare and welcoming, had him more unsure than his first tumble. 

Overwhelmed, he leaned forward and captured one of her ripe, dark mauve nipples between his lips and sucked, his hand soothing the little lines on her skin where her breast band had worked to hold her in, the sound she made shooting straight to his cock. Encouraged, he let one hand cup her neglected breast, plucking lightly at the nipple, before it traced down her stomach until his fingers could slip through the brown curls between her legs. “So wet,” he groaned against her skin, rolling his eyes up to watch her face as he explored very, very gently, the skin damp and delicate and so soft, and she reached out and combed his hair back from his face. 

“Have been. For weeks. Every time...oh!” The sentence ended on a sharp inhale as he eased a finger inside of her, carefully, carefully, and he bit back a groan as she pulsed and fluttered around him, as her hips lifted and rolled. 

“Every time what?” He pumped his finger, let his thumb wander until he found the little bundle of nerves, circled it lightly, and nipped at her nipple when she only moaned and her eyes started to flutter closed. “Every time what, Dayana?” 

“Spar. Sit too close. Smell your skin. Feel your power reaching for mine. Oh oh oh yes!” Whatever he’d done, he wanted to do it again to see the flush race across her breasts and up her neck, heating her cheeks, darkening the green of her eyes to the same color as her ‘saber, wanted to draw out more of her sounds of pleasure. He pushed her legs open and moved over between them, eyes darting from her face to her sex and back again, learning what she liked, what made her gasp and writhe, and when he leaned forward and licked with the flat of his tongue, they both nearly unraveled. 

“Okay?” he managed and she nodded jerkily, swallowing hard to see his lush, wide mouth wet with her, to hear his voice low and deep and growly as his dark eyes found hers and he grinned, fast and wicked. “Good.” He buried his mouth between her legs with more enthusiasm than skill but he had always been a quick study and she tangled her fingers in his hair and held on, held on and encouraged him with moans and sighs and pleas, with her feet flat on the bed, with her knees spread wide. 

Ben felt her thighs begin to shake, felt her slick, wet inner walls pulling at his fingers, felt the hands in his hair tug and pull, and without thinking, he reached out with the Force, brushing against her mind. _Come for me,_ he begged, his tongue swirling around and around her clit, her taste salt and musk, and he felt her power explode out of her, into him, a fast, hard rush of the sea as her body rose in a long line on the bed, and he had to grind his cock, aching and leaking, against the bed to keep from spilling as she cried out with her orgasm. 

She came back to herself, her eyelids fluttering open, to find his chin propped on her hip and his smile a soft, tentative thing. “You done already, Solo?” she asked but there was no bite to the words, still a bit of tremble in the fingers she trailed over his mouth, hooked under the sharp jut of his chin. “Kiss me,” she entreated and he obliged by first kissing his way up, tantalizing her belly, tickling her ribs, nuzzling back and forth between her nipples until she was panting, teasing her neck, until finally, finally he closed his mouth over hers. She tasted herself on his tongue, felt him pressing against her belly hard and hot even through his robes and leggings, and curious, wanting to see, she pushed him over onto his back. It was his turn to be revealed, long limbs, flat stomach, broad shoulders, lean, firm muscles, and Dayana made a soft sound of discovery when he bucked up into her hand as she curled it around his cock, long and thick and hard in her hand. 

“Shit, Day,” he said again, breathless as she leaned down and licked over the nearly purple head, catching a bit of precome on her tongue. She wanted to do more, wanted to take him into her mouth but he shook his head, pulling her up into a hard, desperate kiss as he rolled her back under him, settling himself between her legs. He tore his mouth away, groaning, and nuzzled her cheek. “Not this time. Want to...can I?” 

In answer, she reached down between them and helped guide him to her, both of them gasping as the crown of his cock dragged over her clit, becoming coated in her slick, as he slowly, slowly began to slide into her wet, hot, tight sheathe. He watched her face, pausing when she winced and squirmed a little under him, his eyes nearly rolling back in his head when she rippled and pulsed and whispered, “Just do it, Solo.” 

Taking a deep breath, he shoved forward, shocked when the sound she made was surprise and pleasure, opening to him much easier than he'd expected, taking him all in and winding a leg over his hip. “Fuck, you're so fucking...goddammit, Dayana, _don't move.”_

She froze, her eyes wide, and he laughed shakily and pressed a hard, smacking kiss to her lips. “I want to last more than five seconds.” 

“Big talk,” she teased, lifting and rolling her hips beneath him as she clenched around his invasion and had the gratifying sight of Ben Solo, beautiful, terrifying, powerful Ben Solo shuddering atop her, panting as he tried to hold on to his control. She turned her head, nipped at his neck, nuzzled his shoulder, licked the underside of his chin. “Ben,” she tried and heard him whine, actually felt his cock jerk and swell inside of her as she said his name, the name she’d denied him since his return. “Ben.” She slid her fingers into his midnight curls and tugged until he was arched over her, until they were looking at each other, his eyes huge and drowning black, all pupil. “I'm not afraid of the dark.” 

“Oh, god.” He kissed her again, their tongues tangling, teasing, battling, as his big hands slid down and grasped her ass, and his voice was deep and rough and tender when he whispered, “Hang on.” 

They had tried joining power a handful of times since he'd come back to the Academy. It had always ended in failure, he too used to requiring a tight leash on the wild lash of his power, she too used to letting the power flow easy and slow, each too unwilling or unable to let the other in. As they rose and fell together in her bed, as they found a rhythm, her small hands clutching his straining biceps, his teeth clenched as he tried to hold on, to make it last, as they opened themselves to each other and to the Force around and between and through them, their power found each other as it had on the night of his return, his swirling, dangerous whirlpool fed, bolstered, strengthened by the patient, endless grace of her tide. 

“Ben!” she cried out, high and sharp, feeling the click, the hum and pulse low in her belly, her nails biting into his skin as he plunged into her again and again, and he growled, low and deep in his throat, his hand between them finding and circling her clit, the power humming, humming, ozone and electricity and fire and water, and they exploded, out and up, a hot geyser of sensation and power and pleasure, the Dark and the Light and all of the shades of grey in between. 

Across the compound, Luke and Mara shared a look of distress and worry while Rey stilled in the middle of the sparring ground, her eyes huge in her suddenly bone white face and her practice 'saber hanging limp in her grasp. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You thought Dayana wanted to sleep with me? When we were…before?”_
> 
> _“Well, sure. She was jealous of all of us, right? It’s why she was always so rude and patronizing.” Yamilet rolled her eyes. “Like you’d have looked at her twice anyway.”_
> 
> _“Yeah. Like I’d have looked at her twice.” Ben scrubbed a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Listen, Yam, I gotta go. Tell Ryk and everyone I’ll try to be back as promised this time.”_

“I just can't believe you've stayed so long. Ugh, that place is awful, nowhere to go, nothing to do but train and meditate, listen to Master Luke or that horrid pet of his drone on and on about the Light and the Force and trusting your instincts.” 

Ben was only half-listening to Yamilet, rummaging in his packs for a clean undershirt, wondering if he could catch Dayana for an hour or two to try linking again, this time maybe with their clothes on if they could manage it, under a shield if they couldn't. He was tired of Luke's concerned glances. They'd been successful at it once without sex though, hey, the sex was pretty incredible and he wasn't going to give it up, but he was anxious to see if they could make it do anything more useful than create mind-blowing orgasms and a 'strange wibbly wobble in the Force' as Mara had described it with a smirk and worried eyes. 

“So Ryk says you're finally coming back in a couple of weeks. I can't wait to see you.” The girl's voice dropped into something that had once had Ben enthralled, low and throaty and seductive. “Have you missed me?” 

“Yeah, sure, Yam,” Ben agreed absently, still not really listening, pulling the shirt over his head and reaching for his over-robe, wondering if it was worth the effort to even put it on. He'd either discard it while they sparred or Dayana would once they started kissing so it seemed pointless, especially in the heat. Thinking about kissing her had his cock twitching and he decided the over-robe was worth it to at least hide his unfortunate but obvious erection, shrugging it on but leaving it untied as he finally turned to the little holo of Yamilet hovering over the comm on his bedside table. 

“Oh, look at that, you bad boy, you _have_ missed me.” Yamilet giggled and darted a coquettish look at his crotch from under her lashes. Ben frowned at her in consternation and had opened his mouth to retort when Yamilet continued, “You must be so lonely! I bet that stupid girl still won’t even talk to you. Honestly, I never did understand what she wanted from you. Obviously it’s not what we always thought.” She giggled again and Ben’s frown slid away into thoughtfulness as he sank onto the side of the bed to lace up his boots. 

“You thought Dayana wanted to sleep with me? When we were…before?” 

“Well, sure. She was jealous of all of us, right? It’s why she was always so rude and patronizing.” Yamilet rolled her eyes. “Like you’d have looked at her twice anyway.” 

“Yeah. Like I’d have looked at her twice.” Ben scrubbed a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Listen, Yam, I gotta go. Tell Ryk and everyone I’ll try to be back as promised this time.” 

“You better. I got plans for you, Ben Solo.” 

Ben clicked off the comm, scooped his ‘saber from the floor, and headed out of the little room he hadn’t slept in since he and Dayana had become lovers. 

They didn’t manage to make the link without taking off their clothes. Ben thought that was just fine especially as the Force shield they’d created together from her power and his stretched in a wide dome of pale golden light overhead and Dayana was sprawled across his chest, her smile sleepy and satisfied. 

OoO 

Three weeks later, the Millenium Falcon landed to drop off some supplies. Dayana hosted supper at her house for everyone, Han and Chewbacca’s stories keeping everyone laughing well into late evening, and it was with some surprise that she found herself sitting in Ben’s lap as his father eyed them from the door, a half-smile flirting with the corner of his mouth, the last to leave with Rey snuggled against his shoulder fast asleep. “Don’t stay up too late, kid. Gotta break atmo early.” 

“Yeah, yeah, old man. Go away.” 

“Dayana. Always nice to see you.” Han saluted her, two fingers to his forehead, and then it was just Dayana and Ben, alone in an empty house with their goodbyes. 

“Don’t promise me you’ll come back, Solo,” she warned him suddenly, her eyes fierce. 

Ben smoothed his hands down her back and shook his head, his usually expressive face set and unreadable. He said nothing. 

In the morning, she woke to an empty bed, bruises blooming on her thighs, her hips, her stomach, her breasts, her back, her neck, a roadmap of their long, sleepless night, her nipples so tender she nearly cried as she tightened her breastband. She strapped on her ‘saber, ate a quiet breakfast at her kitchen table, and then set out for her morning meditation. 

She did not use the Force to remove the marks he’d left. 

She did not cry until the last one had faded. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keep it in your pants, Solo. _Even her mental voice was the same, a dry amusement, but he felt her lips on the back of his neck, her fingers in his hair, and he had to clench his fist around his 'saber to keep from reaching for someone who wasn't there._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmm. I'm terrible at battle scenes and hey, they're JEDI, even if they're young. Guys with blasters and disruptor rifles ain't got a chance. Right?! Look, a wild Poe appears!

“That is one fine piece of ass.” 

Ben did not turn his gaze from his side of the room, kept his Force-enhanced senses relaxed, open, scanning for threats, but he did sigh and reach up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Ryk. We're not here to look at pretty girls.” Considering his friend's preferences, he added, “Or pretty boys.” 

“This is a girl. Woman. Definitely a woman. Gorgeous legs. And fuck me, those are some amazing tits and if she looks this way, I am definitely going to try to mind trick her to come closer.” Ryk sounded like he might actually be salivating and not for the first time, Ben wondered if he should have chosen someone else to act as the second guard for his mother's party. 

The invitation had come from Leia personally, over the comm first and then, later, when he arrived in Coruscant, with a hug and a tired smile. There was grey in the braided and coiled mass of her sable brown hair and fine lines around her eyes and mouth; how long had it been since he'd really looked at his mother? Guilt was an uncomfortable and unfamiliar emotion made only heavier when she'd smoothed her small hands over the front of his black robes and shook her head. “My grown up boy. I've missed you.” 

“Why do you need Jedi, mom?” he asked, sprawling out on the lounger in the sitting room of his parents' tasteful penthouse apartment, peeling a muja fruit from the bowl always kept on the low table nearby. “You throw parties all of the time without Force-user guards.” 

Leia sank down onto the edge of the seat near his shoulder, her fingers running idly through his wild, tumbled black hair, the hair that brushed his shoulders and felt like Han's under her fingers despite its color. Her father's color. Her father's darkness tangled in the light that was Luke's teaching. Her little boy, big and strong and yet so angry, so secretive. “You've heard the rumblings, I'm sure. The...disturbances on the outer rim, the waver in the Force.” 

“The Empire reborn nonsense?” he asked, fighting not to tense under his mother's caress, keeping his eyes on the fruit as it dripped over his fingers. Though he kept his own mental shields tight, he could feel her leaking frustration, worry, the barest hint of fear through the Force, and it was the fear that had him leaning closer to her. “I'll bring my hokey religion to protect you, Senator.” 

She laughed and leaned down to kiss his forehead. “Thanks, Knight Solo.” 

“Don't mind trick my mother's friends,” Ben said mildly, shaking off the memory with a roll of his shoulders. 

“If she's friends with your mother, I'll be a … shit.” 

Ben felt it, too, the sudden flare of disgust and rage through the Force, and he dropped his hand to the hilt of his 'saber in his belt, searching the crowd with both his eyes and his senses, seeking, seeking, _there_ and he'd already taken two steps forward as he yelled, “Seven o'clock, everyone down, _right now_!” 

Most of the civilians in the room were slow to respond, wide-eyed and too well-dressed to be any help in a fight. Ben barreled forward, pushing people down and out of his way as he went, the man he'd spotted reaching into his rich, formal robes for a weapon, his eyes narrow and cold, a professional. As Ben debated whether to freeze him in place or Force leap so he could activate his 'saber safely, the sound of blaster fire in a confined space sounded behind him and Ben's choices were gone. He lifted a hand and fisted it, wrapping the would-be assailant in tendrils of the Force, locking him into place. Pleased with himself, he bared his teeth at the man in a pantomime of a grin. 

“Three more, eleven, six, two!” a male voice, not Ryk’s, called and Ben felt a large burst of Force power, poorly aimed, shove against his back. Ben cursed low and fluently in Huttese as the man in front of him returned his feral grin with one of his own. Reaching out, he touched the man's forehead, blanking his consciousness. He let the bastard fall where he would and spun on his heel. 

The crowd, finally aware that this was not a drill and that they were in mortal danger, began to stampede toward the exits, and he had to either shove against the tide or find another way. Looking up, he judged the distance from his current position to the archway where he and Ryk had been standing, the archway which quite by luck (“Luck will serve you every time, kid.”) had an opening carved above it for decorative purposes, and _leaped_. Ignoring the gasps and shouts of the crowd, balancing as well as he could in the small space, he looked down to find that where before there might have been three more, now there were five: two on the left side of the large round room holding blasters on a group that included his mother and Senator U'then'gr and a girl he thought might be his mother's aide though he couldn't be sure, his view of his mother's back and the assailants' faces, two more on the left side had vibroswords and had herded a small group of Republic officials and their significant others into a corner, and a final one was standing in the middle of the room waving a disruptor rifle. Ben did not see Ryk but he did see, from the corner of his eye, a flicker in the Force. 

The flicker was moving, stealthily, toward the man with the disruptor rifle. 

He threw out a mental probe and nearly overbalanced when a surge of familiar energy washed over his careful shielding, the muscles of his abdomen clenching as electricity arced up his spine, setting his nerve endings alight, a sexual, visceral charge, wet and warm and fast, pounding waves. 

_Keep it in your pants, Solo_ . Even her mental voice was the same, a dry amusement, but he _felt_ her lips on the back of his neck, her fingers in his hair, and he had to clench his fist around his 'saber to keep from reaching for someone who wasn't there. 

_How the fuck?_ he threw back and felt her laughter brush his earlobe, a shiver that chased goosebumps over his skin. 

_You two are gonna make me lose my focus,_ grumbled through the link and he felt his baby sister as a solar flare of bright white light, pure and wild. _Master, for Force sake, let him in already,_ the fourteen year old demanded. 

Even as Rey was saying it, Ben felt Dayana open her mental shields, felt her power flow into him, felt the pound and pulse of her tides fueling the thrumming drumbeat of his rage. Rey's mental voice was urgent, _Can you two stop playing kissy-face so I can get Ryk in here?,_ but she'd already done it, Ryk's fear a sharp undertow, trying to pull them all under, and Rey clicked them into orbit, her will the gravity anchoring them together. 

_Good,_ Dayana transmitted, her voice suddenly firm and no-nonsense. _The guy in the middle is the leader. Once Rey drops the Force cloak from me, all hell is gonna break loose. Ryk, you take left, Solo go right, and I’ll try to keep the leader busy and everyone from dying before help gets here._

_Holy shit, you’re a Jedi!_ was all Ryk could manage and Ben had a sudden clear image of Dayana from the party, Dayana whom Ryk had been ogling, Dayana wearing a dress of watered turquoise silk that hugged her curves, wide straps on her delicate shoulders plunging low to reveal the deep V between her breasts, slit high on one muscled thigh to reveal a long, smooth leg and the impossibly fragile copper heels that were more strap than shoe. He wondered where in the kriff she’d hidden her lightsaber, maybe in the carefully coiled updo of her brown and red hair, but it was a thought shoved back for later as Rey released part of her hold on the Force and he jumped down, not enough leverage to leap all the way to the two men designated as his targets. 

He ignited his ‘saber mid-jump, freezing one of the men in place with a lash of the Force and cursing roundly when the other grabbed his mother around the neck and yanked her back, his blaster to her temple. Her caffa brown eyes, only a shade or two lighter than his own, flicked down and to the left, and he understood the signal, his father’s signal, and so Ben simply waited, his ‘saber held in a loose guard position, for Leia to stomp on the man’s toes with the sharp heel of her shoe and stab back and up with the little blade in her hand, waited until the man doubled over, shock and surprise and rage mottling his dark skin, and yanked the blaster out of his hands with the Force. After bashing him in the head with the grip, he handed it to his mother with a smirk, a smirk that she returned with a wink. 

_A little help,_ Rey transmitted with an edge of frustration and Ben spun on his heel. Ryk was kicking the second of the two men he’d been ordered to subdue, the other already sprawled out in a bloody heap before the horrified former hostages, but Dayana was grappling hand to hand with the leader. 

And losing. 

_Steady her!_ Rey barked as the man managed to shove Dayana back three steps, her heels sliding on the slick parquet floor. The rifle was across the floor but so as was Dayana's deactivated 'saber. _I can’t do it and she’s too busy keeping her Force shield active_. Ben could see the flickering yellow edges of it, feel them as he opened wider to Dayana, and she was suddenly showing him what she needed him to do even as Ben darted across the room, quickening his steps with the Force as he powered down his 'saber and clipped it back to his belt. Reaching out, he flicked his fingers toward the man as Dayana ducked, sending a quick jolt of pain and confusion across the bond to Ben, who transmitted it, and just like that, the man stopped, his pale grey eyes going unfocused before they rolled up into his head and he collapsed onto the floor. 

Dayana staggered back, into Ben, and it was instinct to catch her around the waist, holding her tight, and he didn’t need the battle meditation bond to feel her stiffen, didn’t need to turn her to face him to see her eyes go wary because he felt it, the tug and pull between them as she tried to shore up her mental defenses. He considered knocking them back down but Rey had already withdrawn, throwing off the Force cloak around herself to rush over to hug Leia fiercely, and Ryk was walking up, grinning cockily and with interest at the way Dayana and Ben were snuggled together. 

“Dayana, you remember Ryk Qyburn.” He almost laughed as Ryk’s expression went from interest to shock to disbelief in the space of a heartbeat. 

“Yes, hi, hello,” Dayana said awkwardly, attempting to shift away from Ben. He only tightened his arm around her waist, splaying his fingers out over her belly, and he watched as color flushed hot and pink across the upper slopes of her breasts, up her neck, and over her cheeks as Ryk whistled low, his eyes not missing the possessiveness of the gesture. 

“No shit, little Dayana, teacher’s pet. Don’t you look different.” 

“A dress and some makeup can certainly make all the difference.” It had not been his mother’s aide at her side but Yamilet, Yamilet wearing a short dress in Sith red that perfectly complimented her sleek, trim body, her short cap of black hair setting off her startling blue eyes and sharp, feline features, Yamilet who stalked up to them with a friendly smile and eyes as cold as winter. “Dayana,” she drawled, her voice this side of derision. “Got some new…tricks, it seems.” 

“Yamilet,” Dayana returned in a flat, droid-like voice, a voice that sent Ben spinning back to adolescence, he and his friends laughing and joking as they waited for Master Natloia, as Yamilet made a clever remark about the Twi'lek Master's lekku as sexual objects and Dayana, stiff and cold and formal, no expression on her face, turned on them and informed them that it was rude and culturally unacceptable to discuss such things. Ben had laughed and shoved her a little with his hand on her back, his fingertips brushing the rounded, generous curve of her ass as he ordered her to relax, it was just a little fun, and her forest green eyes had gone wide and dark and she'd sprung away from him as if his touch was disgusting and she'd been so prim when she'd told him words could be weapons, a hectic flush on her cheekbones. 

Across the bond neither of them had completely closed, he felt Dayana's skin prickle under the memory of that touch, her own self-loathing for being unable to do exactly as he'd said, relax, her frustration with all of them that they considered her earnest desire to be polite and sensitive to others as being prudish, and that if she could only be as disgusted by his touch as he seemed disgusted by her curves, perhaps their animosity could fade. 

Ben was brought abruptly back to the present when Dayana's arm slid around, her small hand covering his much larger one over her stomach, and he glanced down to find her giving Yamilet a challenging look. He squeezed her, lightly, and she let herself sink back into him as if it hadn't been two years since they'd seen each other, hadn't been two years since they'd spoken, hadn't been two years since he'd left her sleeping in the ruin of her bed, his mind hazed with the twin fogs of exhaustion and sex, and stumbled into the Falcon to his father's unbearable smirk, Chewbacca's rumble of concern, an ache in his muscles and a strange, uncomfortable feeling he'd done something very very wrong. 

“What are you doing here, Yam?” Ryk asked, leaning his elbow on her shoulder, his blonde hair falling elegantly over one eye, his grin less than polite. “Thought you were done with us and our childish antics.” 

Yamilet sniffed and shrugged him off. “Poe invited me.” 

“Poe Dameron?” Dayana asked and Ben and Ryk shared a look at the way Yamilet preened. Ben didn't like the sudden stillness of Dayana, even less when someone behind them called cheerfully, 

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” The little tableau turned toward the archway to find a man sauntering their way, his hands stuffed negligently in the front pockets of his navy dress pants, pulling his slightly rumpled striped dress shirt tight across his shoulders and chest. “I tied up the guy back there. Just in case he wakes up.” His voice was teasing, his smile a wide slash of white in his classically handsome, caf-with-cream face but his loam brown eyes remained serious as he reached them. Ignoring everyone, he leaned in and brushed a kiss across Dayana’s cheek. “Hey, pretty girl. You look amazing.” 

Ben nearly growled as Dayana smiled, wide and soft. “Poe. I didn't know you were here.” 

“Senator Organa-Solo thought I might be useful, being so handsome and all.” He winked broadly and jerked a shoulder, offering a hand to Ben, his eyes still watchful. “Poe Dameron.” 

“I gathered.” Ben kept his voice dry as dust, devoid of any other inflection as he enveloped the man's smaller, less-callused hand in his own. “Ben Solo.” He waited a beat, let his power fill up his eyes, and added easily, “Jedi.” 

“Oh, are we using our titles this evening? I'm Senator Leia Organa-Solo, former Princess of Alderaan.” Leia shot Ben a warning glance as she moved in smoothly between her son and Poe, slipping her hand into the crook of Poe's elbow. Gesturing grandly, she subtly maneuvered the two men apart. “This is Ryk Qyburn, Jedi, and I understand you know Yamilet Gunderson, Jedi, and have you met my daughter, Rey Solo, almost-Jedi?” 

“Poe, hi!” Rey's face was bright in greeting, brightening even more as Poe leaned down and kissed her on the cheek just as he'd kissed Dayana. She kept darting glances at Dayana, however, that Ben didn't like, glances that had his hand balling into a fist at his side, rage and some unnamable emotion a writhing ball of snakes in his gut. 

“Sunshine, you are as adorable and bright as ever. Look at you, all dressed up.” Poe flicked his finger against her nose and had the young girl laughing and blushing and Ben’s dislike for Poe Dameron ratcheted up several more dangerous notches. He was uncomfortably aware that he’d said nothing about how adorable his sister looked in her golden yellow party dress or how beautiful Dayana looked in hers. 

Or how astonishing their power had been, joined with his. 

“Do we have someone coming to clean up the mess?” Ryk asked, gazing around as some of the attackers made groaning sounds. “Seems Dameron knows what he’s doing, tying people up.” Ryk wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. 

Only Poe laughed. “Yeah, Republic security is on its way up.” 

“Well, this party is officially over.” Leia, still holding Poe’s arm, reached out with her free hand and touched Dayana lightly on her shoulder, her eyes sliding up to Ben, a challenge in them. “Why don’t you kids go find something fun to do? I’ll speak with security, soothe some ruffled Senate feathers.” 

“I should probably stay, ma’am,” Poe interjected, giving Yamilet a look when she made an angry noise. “I may just be a pilot but I am an officer.” 

Leia waved his excuse away with a flick of her fingers. “No, I insist. I’ll keep Rey with me. Two beautiful Organa-Solo women and they’ll be drooling at our feet like sarlaccs.” Leia ran an affectionate hand over Rey’s loose, curling golden brown hair, her face softening when her daughter pressed against her side. “Go, have a few drinks. Break a few hearts.” Her gaze, knowing and amused, flicked once more up to her son. “Try not to break anything else.” 

Ben kept his hand curled possessively around Dayana’s arm all the way down the lift and out into the warm, bustling streets of Coruscant. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You got some new moves, Solo.” It was said lazily, after, her cheek on his chest, his fingers combing through her hair, but he went still, still and quiet, and when Dayana looked up at him, Ben was looking back. His eyes were black in the dim light from the half-closed blinds, black and angry and tired._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reposted. I posted this last night and somehow, the Archive ate it. Hmph. Sorry it took so long either way. Work is crazy and Ben and Dayana fought me over what I wanted: I voted smut (here it be), Ben voted angst (oh, that, too), and Dayana is just confused. Probably going to weeklyish updates until work slows down. Thanks for reading!

Dayana felt tense and awkward and could not relax, squished as she was between a glowering, hulking Ben and a laughing, watchful Poe, as Ryk flirted shamelessly with everyone from next to Ben and Yamilet on the other side of Poe was by turns sulkily silent or tossing barbed comments that, more often than not, found their mark in Dayana’s fragile ego. Next to Yamilet she felt fat and ungainly, too much breast and hip showing in her charity-case dress, too much enthusiasm for the delicious, interesting food and drinks and the diverse, fascinating crowd, a stranger in a strange, exotic land, and she withdrew further and further, growing more and more quiet until, finally, she rose to her feet all in a rush. Her face felt like it was on fire as she dropped a couple of credit chips on the table from her little copper clutch. “I should go check on Rey.” 

It flustered her further when Ben, Ryk, and Poe all rose from the table, as well, and she was making a strange push away motion before she could stop herself, hyper-aware of Yamilet’s disgusted, amused expression. “No, no, please, sit. I’ll just…I’ll just…I should…I’m going to go.” 

“Not alone,” Ben growled, one of the few things he’d said to anyone since the beginning of the miserable dinner, and shame and humiliation exploded into anger as he grasped her elbow and began dragging her out of the cantina. She tried to shake him off only for his grip to tighten to bruising intensity, his eyes darting down, dark and full of warning and something else, something wanting, a look he had no right to, not in regards to her, not after all of this time. She jerked her arm again, hissing at him under her breath, but he only continued stomping forward, her short legs no match for his long strides. 

She heard a minor scuffle behind her and then Poe appeared on her other side, giving Ben an unfriendly look as they pushed out into the warm, starry night. 

“You don’t have to go, Day.” 

Ben stopped so abruptly it was only his hold on her that kept her from stumbling forward. She felt, through the Force, his nearly incandescent rage but, beneath it, nearly buried, was something like resignation, and she chanced a look up at him to find him glaring not at Poe and not at her but off into the middle distance, his long, pale, handsome face somehow melancholy in the haze from the streetlights. She reached out, tentatively, through the connection they still hadn’t completely severed and felt his big body jerk against her, felt him reach back, lightly, like a fingertip down her spine as the hand on her arm released, his arm sliding tentatively around her shoulders. 

Dayana shivered and capitulated, leaning forward a little to smile at Poe. “It’s…it’s okay. We have…it’s okay.” 

Poe seemed dubious but he nodded, once, tilting his head back to look at the taller man. “Don’t be an asshole, Solo.” The ‘again’ was implied and Dayana laughed shakily, inappropriately, as Ben led her, more gently this time, deeper into the city. 

OoO 

Dayana had expected Ben to take her back to his parents’ luxury apartment. Instead, they were entering the lift of a mid-level hotel after Ben had checked them in at the counter. Nerves were flying uncontrolled in her belly, nerves and caution and a long-buried ache as the doors slid smoothly closed behind them. He was on her before she could blink, using his hips and his superior height to push her back into the wall, caging her in with his long, long arms, and she could feel how hard he was through his robes and her dress as he ground himself against her belly, his wide, wide mouth fitting over hers so perfectly, his tongue sweeping past her lips in a rough claiming that had her moaning for him. She fisted her hands in the back of his robes and raked her teeth across his tongue, twisted so one of his thighs slipped between her legs, pressing against the ache, and rolled her hips. He yelped and pulled back, his eyes wide and fever bright, a hot wash of color across the slash of his cheekbones. He opened his mouth and she shook her head, fast. “No. Don't talk. Don't say one kriffing thing.” One of his dark eyebrows winged up, his eyes curious and hesitant and hot, and she rose up on tiptoes to bite his sulky lower lip. “Take me to bed, Solo.” 

It was the right (wrong?) thing to say because he shoved up her skirt, hoisted one of her legs up and over his hip, and then lifted her as he'd done on the first day he'd ever been inside of her, one hand on her ass, the other busy between her thighs. She made a high-pitched, breathless noise when he ripped her fragile, pretty underwear away, dropping it heedlessly to the floor, and pressed her head back against the cold durasteel of the lift when two of his slender, elegant fingers plunged deep. “Always so ready for me,” he groaned, breaking her rule, and in retaliation she shoved a hand between them, pushed aside his outer robe, and squeezed her fingers around his cock, a hard, fast pump through his leggings. 

Ben saw stars, his vision hazy at the edges, Dayana's small hands clever and quick, and he sank his teeth into her shoulder to hold in his deep, rumbling groan, rubbing his thumb, hard, against her clit, his fingers still pistoning in and out and kriff he’d forgotten, he’d _forgotten_ how she gave and gave and took and took and reveled in the storm. Her greedy sounds grew slightly frantic and he jerked back to stare at her face, needed to see her face, her big green eyes all pupil, the pretty bow of her lips parted, and he broke her rule again with a soft, pleading, “Please.” He watched her shatter on his fingers, felt the pulse and flutter, the rush of heat and wet, and nearly came in her hand as her power slammed into him through the bond, washing away the barriers between them until he could feel her and she could feel him and they were _together_. 

He had to be inside of her, right now, and so he shot out a wave of Force power, locking the lift into place between floors with a terrible screech that he completely ignored with an appreciative, heartfelt grunt as she fumbled him out of his leggings, both of his hands on her ass to boost her high enough, high enough so that when he pressed forward with her hand guiding him, he slid home. “Goddamn,” he whispered somewhere over her head and felt her shiver, her legs tightening around his waist as her mouth nuzzled his collarbone and her silken inner walls fluttered, caressing around his achingly hard flesh. 

“You just can’t be quiet, can you?” But her voice was breathless and he felt her smile against his skin and so he responded by bending his knees and then thrusting upward at the same time he forced her down, grinding her ass against his balls, drawing a keening whine out of her throat that had his cock swelling inside of her and pleasure knotting in his spine. 

“You’re the noisy one,” he teased back when he could find his voice, his normal bass rumbling deep in his chest, and she shivered again when he rocked his hips, less a thrusting and more a shallow, staccato beat that dragged the broad head of his cock against that place inside of her that made her quiver. “Good?” He could tell it was, her nails biting into his back, her big green eyes going dazed and unfocused, and he laughed unsteadily, nearly curving over her to bury his face in the hollow of her throat, tasting the salt on her skin with his tongue. “It’ll be better when you come on my cock.” 

Because something about being alone with Ben Solo made all of her good intentions and good girl proclivities shoot straight out the airlock, Dayana nipped at his shoulder and deliberately tightened so he had to work to slide back in on the next thrust and panted, “You arrogant ass, fuck me proper…ooohhhh!” He shoved her back with his body, a hard, rough plunge that took him so deep she felt something female inside of her clench and ache, and using his weight to hold her there, he slid one arm and then the other underneath her thighs so she was actually sitting on his forearms, spreading her legs wider, up and back, open to him. 

“What was that?” he purred as she stared down between them open-mouthed, as he returned to the slow, lazy rhythm of before so she could watch his cock, slick and wet with her, advance and retreat from between her legs, the wicked, filthy sound filling the small space. He nuzzled the side of her face with his lips and murmured, “You’ll have to touch yourself, Day, if you want to come.” He bit her full lower lip, dragged his tongue across it, and growled, “And I want to watch.” 

“Oh, god,” she managed as he leaned back, smirking slightly at her even as he continued to pump his hips, and Dayana slipped her hand down between them before she thought better of it, before she considered the intimacy required, the absolute, utter trust. His pleased groan, long and low, was encouragement enough, but the way those drowning dark eyes dropped down, watching eagerly as her fingers parted the thick outer lips of her sex, revealing the swollen, pink bud of her clit, revealing more of the incredible sight of his cock filling her had her natural shyness going up in flames. 

She felt his hips stutter as he brushed her fingertips on the upstroke, as she circled her clit with her middle finger, heard his low exclamation of, “Shit, look at you, so fucking gorgeous,” and with a sharp, high-pitched, surprised cry, Dayana felt her orgasm rush through her, hot and fast and wild, her body bucking against him, almost fighting his hold as she arched and shuddered. 

Ben cursed again, his muscles straining to hold her in place, straining to continue to fuck her through it, to make it last, but the wash of her pleasure through him from the bond, the heat and light and rush, the endless thrill of watching her strong, small, nimble fingers continue to work between them tipped him over the edge, the call of her power to his a siren’s song, washing him clean even as he buried his face in her hair and emptied into her. 

OoO 

They giggled like naughty children leaving the once-more functional lift, giggled down the hallway and into the hotel room, giggled even as she discarded hair pins and he stripped out of robes and somewhere along the way, they fell into the bed deliciously naked and had each other again, slowly this time. She kissed every new scar, and there were more than she could count on one hand, across his skin, mapped every mole and beauty mark with her touch. He, in turn, kissed her slowly and deeply until she could taste only him, licked and suckled and stroked until when he finally rose over her, she welcomed him in with a wordless, breathless sigh. 

“You got some new moves, Solo.” It was said lazily, after, her cheek on his chest, his fingers combing through her hair, but he went still, still and quiet, and when Dayana looked up at him, Ben was looking back. His eyes were black in the dim light from the half-closed blinds, black and angry and tired. 

And she just knew, jerking back and up and away from him, suddenly feeling naked and exposed and somehow dirty as he scrubbed a hand through his hair and scooted until he was reclining against the headboard, the sheets pooled at his waist. “No one?” she blurted artlessly and he laughed, a harsh bark of sound. 

“No one,” he confirmed. 

“But I...but you...you didn't...I never...why?!” Guilt settled low and heavy in her belly when his lush mouth quirked and he jerked a shoulder, his face unreadable, his shields tight and firm against her probing. 

“You made me promise not to come back.” He said it as if that explained anything, anything at all, anything about the lonely, sleepless nights, the aching, _endless_ nights alone in the bed that was suddenly too big, too empty, and a comm that was completely, utterly silent. 

“I did not!” But she could see, as he slid suddenly from the bed and paced away to the window, his back to her, that he could have interpreted her silence just as she'd interpreted his. “Ben,” she tried when she couldn’t bear the weight and heaviness of his withdrawal, and he half-turned toward her. “I knew you had to go,” she said miserably. “I didn’t mean you couldn’t come back.” 

He grimaced and leaned back against the window, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why are you here?” The question came out as an accusation and Ben nearly gave in when she winced and tugged on the sheet, concealing herself from him, nearly gave in because he’d _missed_ her and he’d never missed anyone before, not really, not so much that his stomach cramped with it, not so much that he turned a dozen times a day to talk to someone who wasn’t there, someone he’d assumed didn’t _want_ to be there. She’d never had much use for him, after all, perfect, centered Dayana and wild, reckless Ben Solo. Dayana who made Luke and Mara proud, Dayana whom Rey loved, Dayana whom Leia respected and Han admired, Dayana who had kicked him out of her life as easily as she’d invited him in. 

Dayana, curvy and sexy and giving who, unlike poor, pitiful, pining Ben Solo, had not slept alone for two years. 

“Your mother invited Rey and Rey invited me. Luke and Mara jumped in and agreed I should go and so…” She shifted, the sheets making a soft, sibilant sound and Ben felt his stomach twist – she was naked and alone and he was across the room. What was _wrong_ with him? 

“Why are you here with _me_?” he blurted, the awkward, troubled words falling out of his mouth before he could stop them, the words and the truth of them spilling out over his barriers, into her, the loneliness, the need, his respect and his desire, and, under everything, buried deep, the fear that she’d let him go to prove she _could_. Her face went blank with shock and Ben turned away from her, slamming his hand against the window frame, relishing the sharp pain as it shot up his arm, the sharp pain that let him focus, let him draw on the Dark to shore up his weak, damaged defenses. 

Or would have if a small, ‘saber roughened hand hadn’t slid up his back, if a soft, female body hadn’t leaned against his side, if Dayana’s serenity hadn’t seeped out of her and into him, into every pore, every crack, every faultline until he could see nothing, feel nothing, smell nothing but her, until all he could do was tilt his head over until his cheek rested on her tumbled brown and red hair. If he was the Dark and Rey was the Light, Dayana was the calm center to their storm, battered but never broken, renewing and resourceful and he was a very, very great fool. 

“Ben,” she whispered, his name a gentle rebuke, a firm promise, and she sighed as he turned and hauled her close, his arms tight around her, his long, handsome, pale face in shadow as they stared at each other. “I missed you, too.” 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Battle meditation, Rey had come to learn, was a tricky sort of thing. Master Luke had cautioned her, in the beginning, that she could overwhelm weaker minds with her ability, slip into their skin and tear away their will, create fighters with perfect, precision timing, limited only by her imagination and their fragile, mortal bodies. Something about that had appealed to Rey, appealed to the darkest part of her heart that craved subjugation, submission, power, and she had huddled in her bunk, deaf to everyone’s pleas, until her father had shown up in the Falcon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Han is such a good dad. I'm not sure why Luke is such a stick in the mud. (Actually, yes, I do know, and you will, too, sooooooon.) <3 you guys.

“I’m not sure how safe it is right now, Dayana.” Luke steepled his fingers and watched the girl, no, the _woman,_ eye him across his desk with raised eyebrows and an expression that hovered somewhere between exasperation and strained patience, a look he thought she might have learned from Mara. 

“They deserve their chance,” she tried again, shaking her head impatiently when he would have interrupted. “I’ve heard every argument you’re making. I know it’s risky and reckless to go to Ilum.” She half-smiled at him, half-grimaced, an expression all her own, and leaned forward across his desk, her green eyes earnest and understanding. “You can’t shelter them here forever, Luke. If we don’t take them, they’ll run off on their own. Maybe even be like another farm boy a long time ago and get mixed up in a war no one wants to admit is coming.” 

Luke sighed and shook his head, scratching his fingers through his beard. “When did you learn how to push all the right buttons?” He waved her answer away with a little pushing motion. “Stop, stop, I know you’re right. Rey, especially, needs to break atmo before she bursts.” 

Dayana, relieved that she wasn’t going to have to continue to argue, sank bank and rolled her eyes. “She put a lizard in my bed and a snake in my shoe yesterday. When I reminded her she was sixteen and not six anymore, she told me if we wanted to treat her like a child, she’d damn well act like one.” 

“Oh, that girl. I’m not sure if that’s Leia or Han's influence but either way, she is a special trial.” There was amused affection in his voice as they shared a grin across the desk. A grin that quickly faded when he said, “Have you heard from him?” 

She hesitated which was answer enough but she finally shook her head, her hands twisting together in her lap. “The last transmission, he was with Han and Chewbacca on Rakata Prime.” 

“So, he’s still looking.” Luke sounded disappointed and Dayana wished, fervently, that she wasn't keeping secrets for her lover from the only man she'd ever considered a father. The father who even now was tracing a fingertip over his desk, drawing what appeared to be an older model X-Wing in the thin layer of dust, his pale blue eyes distant and sad. Damn them both, she thought with a bright flash of rage and disgust, for putting her in such a terrible place. 

Damn Ben because he was convinced Luke wouldn’t understand. 

Damn Luke for proving him right. 

And damn her, too, because she loved them both, the immovable object and the unstoppable force, her peaceful and cautious adopted father and her wild and reckless lover, and she was convinced that as much as Rey needed to get away, so, too, did she. 

So instead of offering the comfort she wanted to offer, instead of agreeing with Luke as she knew he wanted her to do that Ben’s quest to find out more about his grandfather was foolish and naïve and dangerous, she stood and turned to go, to find Rey and her fellow Kessel Run padawans and tell them that yes, they were going to Ilum and yes, they were going to be building some lightsabers. She’d almost stepped through the door when Luke called from behind her, “Does he love you?” 

For two years, Dayana had wondered and watched and waited, left behind but not, this time, forgotten: holocalls, trinkets, flimsies, a stolen day or two or, twice, a whole moon’s turn, where he landed the black, bat-like shuttle his father had given him as a gift for his birthday and took her to bed and they sparred and laughed and learned each other’s weaknesses and strengths and their power grew, together and apart. Two years and still, though she could sometimes feel Ben’s emotions strumming through the Force bond they’d cemented into being on Coruscant in a hotel lift, still he kept some part of him locked away from her, hidden and secret. 

Luke observed her, the serious forest green eyes, the softened curve of her prettily bowed mouth, the way she tilted her chin just slightly toward the floor as she angled herself to look at him, and he didn’t need the answer she gave in her steady, earnest way to feel the knot in his chest loosen. “He said he’ll always come back to me.” 

It was the promise Han had given to Leia on their wedding day. 

OoO 

Rey moved with slow, careful, plodding steps, her breath pluming in white gusts, her fingers in their thick, mogo wool lined leather gloves stuffed into her armpits for warmth, the darkened duraplast of her goggles keeping her from going blind in the endless, barren whiteness of the landscape, ice and snow as far as she could see, and the Force hummed and burbled and whispered in her ear, promises and threats and endless possibilities. Beside her was her partner, Zi’kal, a Twi’lek with nearly purple skin whose lekku were banded in red when not covered by the ridiculous-looking muffs Dayana had forced him to wear which made him look like he had huge, fluffy tails hanging from his head. If their errand had been any less serious or important, Rey would have laughed until her sides ached. As it was, she nudged him gently through the Force and grinned behind her face wrap when he nudged her back physically, a little tap of his knee against her thigh. 

Through the earpiece of her headgear, Rey heard hissing static and then, “Check in time, kiddos.” Dayana’s voice was cheerful and Rey rolled her eyes. Of course their teacher was cheerful, sitting warm and snug in the shuttle, curled up in a corner of the banquette in the galley nursing a cup of caf and reading on her holopad; s _he_ wasn’t out here in the snow and the frigid air looking for kyber crystals that were supposed to sing. 

“I took a turn, Rey,” Dayana admonished gently and Rey winced as she realized she’d said the last part aloud. “And stop peeking. You know it isn’t polite.” 

“Sorry, Master,” Rey muttered and was graced with a gentle laugh from her teacher and a louder, more braying sound from Zi’kal. She scowled and hunched her shoulders, feeling ten years old again. 

“It’s okay, just be…” Dayana’s voice trailed away and after half a second Rey heard it, too: the sound of a ship breaking atmosphere. Both she and Zi’kal looked up. 

The ship was sleek and black, similar to Ben’s but not the same, and it was much too close if they were making out details like the red running lights even through the swirl of snow it was kicking up. Rey and Zi’kal shared an uneasy look as they both reached for the blasters on their hips, a precaution Mara had suggested when she’d been asked to act as Dayana’s second on the trip. Rey felt Dayana push lightly, asking for permission to be let in, and she granted it even as she and her companion searched about for cover. 

_We are coming. Can you link us?_

Rey nodded, realized her teacher wasn’t physically present, that they weren’t running a training simulation as two, then three, then four black-robed figures made their way out and into the snow, fanning out into a sweeping formation that looked eerily familiar, and she cast out her mental net as they’d practiced, snaring her six fellow Padawans, Mara, and Dayana in her power. 

Battle meditation, Rey had come to learn, was a tricky sort of thing. Master Luke had cautioned her, in the beginning, that she could overwhelm weaker minds with her ability, slip into their skin and tear away their will, create fighters with perfect, precision timing, limited only by her imagination and their fragile, mortal bodies. Something about that had appealed to Rey, appealed to the darkest part of her heart that craved subjugation, submission, power, and she had huddled in her bunk, deaf to everyone’s pleas, until her father had shown up in the Falcon. 

“Listen, princess,” he said sternly, but his dark eyes were twinkling as he hoisted her into his lap as if she were still five, wrapping his arms around her. “Your mom, she can do something like that, right? Stands up in front of all those people and talks them over to her side, tells them this is how it should be and they do it.” His grin was as crooked as ever, the lines in his face deeper, his hair shaggy and liberally laced with grey, but he still smelled like her dad, like grease and gas and ozone, and Rey balanced her elbows on his shoulders and admitted, 

“I’m afraid.” 

He cupped her face in his work-roughened hands and rubbed his thumbs over her cheekbones. “Luke’ll tell ya that’s a fast, bumpy ride to the wrong side.” He jerked a shoulder and his eyes crinkled charmingly at the corners and she wondered, again, how much of the dark her father had seen that had nothing to do with the Force, fast, dangerous Han Solo who was more like his son than either of them would admit. “I dunno anything about the space mumbo jumbo but I’ll tell ya something: if you ain’t afraid, you ain’t livin’.” He kissed her forehead, pressing his words into her skin. “You’re a special kid, Rey. You got my guts and your mom’s smile and you’ll figure it out.” 

_Power just_ is _. It’s how you define yourself that matters._ Her brother’s voice, earnest and frustrated after another of Luke’s lectures, Dayana standing quietly at his side, their fingers intertwined. 

She scrunched in close and laid her head into the crook of her father’s neck, the father who had never been here but had always been there, and let the fear seep out of her pores, so much sand and dust, and accepted that, like her mother, like her uncle, like her brother, like her grandfather, Breha Solo had power. 

She let go of the fear, and the worry, and the doubt, and though she felt the Light inside of her, she embraced, for the first time, the Dark, and accepted that like her father, Rey Solo didn’t want anyone to tell her the odds. 

And so in the ice and the snow and the menace of Ilum, Padawan Rey, fierce, calculating, terrified Rey, watching as the four masked, robed figures activated their Sith-red weapons, lightsabers but not, gambled everything she had that the Grey was the path. 

_Her_ path. 

She steadied herself against Zi’kal and, reaching out, she brushed lightly against the consciousness of the nearest fighter, hissing as she felt the roiling miasma in the Force that tried to repel her, pain and loss and fear and triumph, _little stupid girl and her little stupid pet, ours, the Master will be pleased_ and Rey slid in and around and through, slippery as an eel, quick as a snake, gentle as a lover, and the Darksider was caught as neatly as a womprat in a sand trap. Carefully, carefully, for her aim was not to break but to bend, Rey riffled through the other woman’s mind as she kept her moving forward through the snow, kept her in formation as they swept the area, looking, looking, where was it, where was it, who are you, who are you, why us, why now, what what what who who who… 

“Yamilet?” 

Next to her, Zi’kal jerked at her shocked, betrayed whisper. 

His shot went wide but it was enough to give away their location. 

_Hurry_ , Rey sent as she blanked Yamilet’s mind, the woman dropping into a graceless heap in the snow. 

_I’m here,_ was the answer and on the far end of the column, his mind-voice rough, his presence weary but resolute and calm in the Force, Ben Solo lifted a black-gloved hand and froze both Zi’kal and his sister in place. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Force push Ben shrugged off with only a little twist of his neck, sun glinting sharply from his mask as he lifted his hand casually. Yamilet screamed as she rose on a current of the Force, her legs kicking out a meter or more from the ground as she tried, futiley, to break Ben's hold. “You’re boring me, Zannah Ren,” he drawled arrogantly and in her head, Rey heard,_
> 
>  
> 
> Now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost at the end, folks. <3

“Your sister and this worthless slave aren’t what we came for!” 

Ben stood calmly in the face of Yamilet’s spitting, venomous rage, he and the other two Knights a solid black wall between her and the two still Force-locked Padawans. The woman had wrenched off her mask and thrown it aside when she’d been released from Rey's Force sleep, her intent to harm clear on her beautiful, sharp face, and it had been a near thing, only Ben's firm "No," and his sheer physical bulk keeping her from her goal. 

"They are not _all_ we came for," he added and turned only his head in the menacing, blank, silver and black mask to look back to the north. Rey felt a chill seep into her bones that had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with fear: north was the direction from which Dayana was coming. 

Yamilet was not appeased, her lips peeling back from her teeth, her blue eyes rimmed in red. “Who, Luke’s little Sage?” She laughed, high and wild, and reached up, curling her hand over the faceplate of Ben's mask to turn it back to her. Rising on to tiptoe, for Ben towered over even tall, slender Yamilet, she hissed into his face, "She's nothing, not even good enough to be brood stock." 

Ben's voice was mild and amused even through the distortion of the rebreather. "She is mine,” he said simply and Rey shivered again, feeling Dayana stumble where she was preparing to crest the hill. 

The Force push Ben shrugged off with only a little twist of his neck, sun glinting sharply from his mask as he lifted his hand casually. Yamilet screamed as she rose on a current of the Force, her legs kicking out a meter or more from the ground as she tried, futiley, to break Ben's hold. “You’re boring me, Zannah Ren,” he drawled arrogantly and in her head, Rey heard, 

_Now._

She and Zi’kal rose up, the Force that was meant to hold them instead flowing through and out of them, into their comrades and into their Masters as their lightsabers slapped into their palms from where they’d been buried in the snow, Rey’s purple sabrestaff and Zi’kal’s two yellow blades beacons for the glowing, golden dome of light that spread overhead. 

“I can’t hold it very long!” Dayana yelled from the north, a distraction and a feint as Mara and the other Padawans boiled out of the snow from the east, lightsabers in every hand. Rey released her hold on Yamilet’s consciousness, the woman once more slumping as Ben released her with a snarl, his hand reaching for his own ‘saber at his hip. 

“What the fuck?” the man on Ben’s right managed but Rey yanked him in and then shoved him out of his own head before he could do more than that, Zi’kal already Force leaping into the man on his left. 

A whirl, a slash, and he, too, fell into the snow, unconscious and bleeding but not dead, and Ben came face to face with six armed Padawans, a narrow-eyed sister, a frowning aunt, and the still, expressionless face of his lover. Slowly, he reached up and disengaged the locks holding his mask into place with a hiss and a whir, tucking the contraption under his arm. “Hey, gorgeous,” he tried and watched as a smile bloomed on Dayana’s pretty mouth and in her green, green eyes, watched as she dropped her lightsaber hilt into the snow and launched herself at him, the hated mask thumping to the ground as he picked her up and held on tight. 

“Ben, Ben, Ben,” she whispered into the curve of his shoulder, into the smoothness of his cheek, into the wild, sweaty fall of his black hair and he murmured soothingly back to her, his big hands restless on her back, on her hips, up the lovely curve of her spine, the lush, giving body he had mapped a thousand times with lips and tongue and touch and yet each time was still so very, very precious. After a too-short meeting of lips, he let her turn in the circle of his arms so she could beam at Rey and the rest of the Kessel Run. Mara, for her part, had already rolled her eyes at the reunited lovers and was kneeling in the snow, securing their prisoners with Force-dampening shackles she and a few of the others had been carrying in their robes. She didn’t bother removing helmets, already well-aware of who was hiding under the masks. 

Betrayal, as Luke had always lectured, was most often fated to come from within. That they’d kept it from him that it already had, that his wife and his nephew and his youngest Padawans had been aware of, if not complicit in, the act would be another kind of pain for the venerated Jedi. Dayana felt her heart squeeze down tight in her chest even as she surveyed her students, these people she’d watched grow, had helped to mold, had guided and taught and whom she loved. 

These Jedi. 

“I am so proud of all of you,” she said, reaching out to touch Zi’kal, lightly, on the forehead. He blushed, his purple skin bleeding to rose, and ducked his head. Rey, however, preened, which of course had her brother reaching out and thumping her lightly on the head with his closed fist. 

“Rey Rey, don’t be so vainglorious,” he teased which had Mara snorting out her husky laugh as she rose, dusting snow from her robes. 

“That’s a bit of something coming from you, _Kylo Ren_ ,” she said and Ben winced for effect as everyone laughed. 

“I didn’t pick it!” he defended and felt Dayana tense against him, felt across the bond as more sorrow, this time for him rather than Luke, briefly crowded in with the joy of their victory; she had seen when, and how, he’d earned the new name from his new Master. He kissed the top of her head and sent back his promise that he was okay, everything would be okay, and she melted back against him with a sigh. 

He helped Mara find and temporarily disable the tracking devices he knew were on weapons and armor, in belts and boots and under skin, slung one of the prisoners over his shoulder with pure brute strength and the vestiges of adrenaline as the Padawans and their teachers worked together to bring along the other two. There was a time limit on getting the Knights away from Ilum, on getting Ben (Kylo) back to his Master to face the consequences of losing his three most trusted lieutenants in the Knights of Ren, but Dayana made sure to have a moment where she could snag Ben by the wrist and tug him with her into the small, cramped cargo hold while Mara and the students prepared for takeoff. 

“What are you...oh.” His exhale was surprise and lust tangled impossibly with love as she pushed him to sit on a crate, as she shimmied out of her leggings and pushed his down to his ankles, moving their robes out of the way as she climbed astride him, taking his half-hard cock inside of her with a pleased little sound and a bite to the sharp line of his jaw. She liked how he let her lead, liked how he settled his hands on her hips, curving his fingers over to brush the curve of her ass as she rode him, liked how he didn’t close his dark, dark eyes but kept them on her face, liked how when she made a particularly hard buck and roll, his long, long eyelashes fluttered and his throat bobbed as he tried to swallow back the moan. 

“Gonna come for me, Solo?” she taunted but it was a sweet invitation rather than barbed mockery as her mouth skated over the jut of his chin, ghosted across his hawkish nose, tickled the lobe of his ear, and through the bond they were both chanting _mine mine mine mine_ , his fingers between them bringing her to a shuddering orgasm seconds before her hard, fast, stuttering rhythm tipped him over the edge so he spilled deep inside of her, her name a prayer on his lips. 

Pride and love, so much love, streaked through Dayana as below her Ben tried to catch his breath, as he continued to hold her and touch her even after he’d gone mostly soft inside of her, as he nuzzled his face into the curve of her neck and whispered, “Your faith in me, Dayana, it’s so huge.” 

“I love you,” she said as if that explained anything at all about her unshakeable belief that he was _good_. 

Ben clutched her tight to him, his love and his faith and his hope, his anchor in the dark, and blurted, “Marry me.” 

Mara officiated in her capacity as a Jedi. Rey stood as both best man and maid of honor. The rest of the Kessel Run gave away the bride. The rings were leftover pieces of lightsaber materials twisted into shape with the Force, Dayana rolling her eyes when Ben showed off by turning hers into a twining, sinuous vine, Ben frowning fiercely when Dayana tucked his into his robes rather than sliding it on his finger. It was a precaution, a necessary one, but he chafed against it all the same. 

The kiss they shared was long and poignant and another seal on the promises they’d already made: 

Ben would always find his way back. 

Dayana would always welcome him home. 

OoO 

Luke touched each of the faces of his former students, revealed from under their masks, his voice sad but gentle, “You are forgiven.” 

OoO 

Snoke stared down at his apprentice from his impossible, imposing height, the apprentice who writhed and bucked and thrashed on the floor but who did not scream or cry or beg for mercy under the physical or mental torture being inflicted, the apprentice who had failed him but who refused to break, and intoned, “Again.” 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Yamilet who would always have a part of Ben that he kept carefully and deliberately hidden from the waiting Jedi wife he abandoned again and again, Ben the husband Dayana had seen only a handful of times since they’d pledged to each other, the husband who carried her heart into battle with him, through the smoke and the screaming engines overhead, the husband she had shielded as tightly as she possibly could as soon as he landed with his Knights because she, too, was keeping secrets._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was really hard for me to write. I struggled with it, mostly because I like happy and this is...not happy. Bad things happen. Just...be warned.

Luke hated war. He hated the drawn look on his twin’s face, the haunted look in his wife’s eyes, the way his brother-in-law jumped at shadows, how his young daughters Jaina and Kira were growing up surrounded by battleships and blasters, how his grown daughter Dayana had to watch her husband (his nephew) fall farther and farther into the Darkness in order to fulfill some Force-damned prophecy that had destroyed the original Chosen One. 

Hated how his school turned from morning meditation and lightsaber training and food fights in the mess to battle strategy and fighting simulations and the endless, interminable waiting for Snoke to order an attack on the Academy. 

Mara’s hand on his shoulder was welcome as she sank down next to him, her legs bumping his as she assumed her preferred meditation pose, knees beneath her, palms flat on her thighs. Her power hummed and jolted and danced with his, and Luke wondered at how all of the Skywalkers, born or made, dreamed of the ocean in all its myriad, splendid, dangerous forms and yet took to the stars at every opportunity. 

For Leia, the calm, still tidepool. 

For Rey, the vast expanse of blue and remote island. 

For Mara, the riptide, strong and dangerous. 

For Jaina, the sunlight filtering through the water, fractured and bent and beautiful. 

For Dayana, the thunderous, patient beat of the tide. 

For Kira, the reef, teeming with life. 

For himself, the ocean as sentient, pulsing like a heart at the center of all things. 

For Ben, the maelstrom, the push-pull of the vortex, one tide twisting against another, fighting for dominance and breaking, twisting, torturing whatever was caught within. 

“Stop.” Mara tipped her head over onto his shoulder, her still-bright red hair tangling with his own greying gold, and it was as natural as breathing to do exactly as she asked, this woman who had been the Emperor’s Hand and then Luke’s heart, to let her pull him in and then under, her laughter still husky and slightly brittle as she tumbled him back into the grass. 

“Mara...” Luka said but what was meant to be a warning that they had no time was instead a yearning request and her smile flashed, fast and hot, as she leaned down and bit his lower lip. 

“Skywalker.” Her eyes sparkled as she leaned back a little, her hips making contact with his. He instinctively arched and bucked, his hands tight on her hips, his own mouth skating down her neck and he chuckled lightly when she purred like a cat. 

“How many of our students you think broke the old Code right here?” she asked, afterward, gloriously tumbled and half-naked in the sunshine, and Luke kissed the pouting red tip of one of her nipples, enjoying the sight of the whisker burn on her skin. 

_They’ve come_ . Rey’s mental voice was firm and calm through the Force, the net of her power enveloping them like the brush of wings before expanding outward, seeking others. 

Luke and Mara rose together, rearranging robes, tightening belts, pausing to be sure of the familiar weight of their lightsabers at their hips. They hugged, tight and close, Mara tipping her head back to watch as Luke’s sky blue eyes hardened, darkened, and his voice was as calm as his Force signature as he said, “May the Force be with you.” 

OoO 

Ben felt Rey click him into place with the little snap of circuits fusing, a flare of power and a wink, and he opened himself to her, let his Darkness anchor to her Light, and reaching up, he discarded his mask, throwing it away from him, and grinned, ferally, at the two of his Knights flanking him. “Hi, my name is Ben Solo, and you picked the wrong school to fuck with.” 

Rey’s laughter was snarky and beautiful, her changeable eyes bronze in the dying light as she dropped her Force shield, twirling her double-bladed purple ‘saber from her position just behind and to the left of her brother. “Hi, my name is Breha Solo, and you’re both bantha fodder,” she said, cheerfully, and together, the brother and sister joined the battle in earnest, back to back, deadly grace and focused power. 

Ben tried not to think about the firm, high wall Dayana had slammed into place between them, shutting him out. 

OoO 

Luke had been certain they could save his former students. Labor, meditation, repentance, learning. For two years, they had practiced together and apart, working on reintegrating into the Academy. Ryk had been able to do so with ease, his concession for the terrible things he’d seen and done the day he’d handed his red-bladed pike over to Luke with a shrug. “Done doing the Jedi thing, dark, light, grey. Admiral Calrissian says he’ll take me on, no questions. Says most of us Force weirdos are good with a blaster.” 

According to Han, who’d slipped into the Academy a few weeks after Ryk’s leaving to visit with his daughter and his daughter-in-law and discuss tactics with Luke and Mara, Ryk was definitely a fair hand with a blaster and might, possibly, have a death wish. “Takes the toughest, roughest missions, comes back smiling.” Han shook his head, smoothing a hand down Rey’s back and looking across the table at Dayana. Unmentioned between them was the spectre of Ben, hollow-cheeked and wild-eyed after the last meeting of the First Order and the Resistance, his red ‘saber matched against his sister’s purple, the only thing that saved either of them on the desert backwater of Jakku the quick-thinking of Stormtrooper FN-2187. 

Finn, codenamed Big Deal by a grateful Han and given a name by Poe, had saved Rey because Kylo had let him. Finn had been welcomed into the Resistance with open arms. Kylo (Ben) was still a prisoner of the First Order. 

Lekt, the second of Kylo’s lieutenants, had refused to speak for months once they’d been ‘captured’, his cybernetically-enhanced body going through the motions but his mind obviously somewhere else. Mara had probed, again and again, sometimes not as gently as Luke might have wished, and found only that Lekt did not believe he deserved forgiveness or redemption, that he was simply waiting for their dark master to come and end them all. “Fire and blood,” Mara murmured into Luke’s ear, choked by a memory. “He dreams of fire and blood.” 

Lekt had slipped away one evening. His Force signature was a hole, empty and dead. 

Of all of them, Ryk, Lekt, Yamilet, it was hardest for Dayana to accept, to forgive, Yamilet. 

For Dayana, there were some insecurities that she’d never outgrown. When she watched Yamilet, spoke with Yamilet, sparred with Yamilet, all she could remember was the past when she’d yearned to be someone she wasn’t (thinner, funnier, prettier, faster, not so serious or austere, _normal_ ) so that once, just once, Ben Solo would look at her like he looked at Yamilet. 

Yamilet who had loved Ben first, Yamilet who had often been the most cruel, the most dismissive, the most cutting when they were fighting toward adulthood together, tooth and claw and hormones, Yamilet who was beautiful and intelligent and deadly, a perfect foil for the Master of the Knights of Ren, who could not only meet Kylo’s darkness but match it. 

Yamilet who would always have a part of Ben that he kept carefully and deliberately hidden from the waiting Jedi wife he abandoned again and again, Ben the husband Dayana had seen only a handful of times since they’d pledged to each other, the husband who carried her heart into battle with him, through the smoke and the screaming engines overhead, the husband she had shielded as tightly as she possibly could as soon as he landed with his Knights because she, too, was keeping secrets. 

One of them stalked toward her down the long hallway to the Academy medbay, her slim hips swaying in an exaggerated manner as she tossed a lightsaber hilt from hand to hand, her smile feral and sharp. Dayana didn’t need Force sensitivity to recognize menace or malice in the other woman, had suspected, nearly from the beginning, that Yamilet’s dislike of her had only grown into something deeper, something even more personal over the years. 

It was often easier to see in someone else what we couldn’t, wouldn’t, see in ourselves. 

“Yamilet,” she said neutrally, stepping away from the locked and protected medbay door, one hand lifting her lightsaber hilt from her belt, thumbing the nearly black blade into existence, holding it out carefully before her in a guard position. Her free hand she slid down to cover the other secret she was keeping, the secret she’d been cherishing, nurturing, growing under her heart, the other secret that had rage bleeding Yamilet’s sky blue eyes to scarlet. 

“You, and it, won’t last the day,” Yamilet hissed, the lightsaber in her hand flaring into surprisingly petal pink light as she reached out with one hand to drag Dayana across the floor toward her, too many of her teeth showing in the rictus of her smile. “You never could beat me in a fight.” 

OoO 

Terror spiked cold in Ben’s heart, his will faltering as his spitting 'saber blade crossed with Pym Ren’s plasma-bladed axe: through the bond with his wife, through her desperate, tight shielding, he felt a little light reach out to him, a little light that was possibility and hope and love, the little light that was his child, her child, _their child_ , and there was so much incandescent, shocking joy, Dayana was going to make him a _father_. 

The little light that flickered and then was extinguished, all between one heartbeat and the next. 

Kylo Ren’s roar was a hideous, monstrous, nightmarish bellow of grief and loss and fury. 

Across the galaxy in his cave, a hissing viper of a Supreme Leader smiled down from his towering hologram and stroked the cold chrome and durasteel arms of his throne. "Yes, my apprentice. Yes." 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I’m sorry, my sweet, sweet babies, so sorry. It was my job to protect you, to love you, and I failed you. I failed you and I failed your father and he’s lost. I lost him, my sweet, precious girls, when I lost you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't keep the angst going. I'm a terrible writer. I like happy endings. But...where's Ben?! (Oh, and I switched around the order of this chapter after posting it yesterday. It makes more sense with the next chapter this way. Sorry!)

It was Leia holding her hand when Dayana regained consciousness, Leia who reached out and brushed a limp strand of hair from the pale, bruised cheek, her familiar dark eyes kind and sad, and Dayana breathed out, long and slow, and blinked to clear her swimming vision. Every part of her hurt, particularly her lower back, and she tried, very very hard, not to think about the low, grinding ache in her belly. Her voice, when she managed to find it, was hoarse and flat. “How long?” 

“A galactic standard day.” Leia watched Dayana flinch, her green eyes dull, her mouth wavering, and added gently, “Luke called for an evacuation. You’re with the Resistance on D’Qar. Is it all right if the doctor looks at you?” 

Leia nodded to Dr. Kalonia who was hovering in the background, datapad in one hand, scanner in the other when Dayana jerked a shoulder and turned her face away. Leia felt the grip on her hand tighten to beyond pain as Dr. Kalonia pushed aside the thin medbay scrubs to run the wand over Dayana’s abdomen. There was a hum, a pause, and then a series of beeps. She and the doctor shared a look when Dayana didn’t ask any questions, only curling onto her side and stuffing her fist against her mouth, her shoulders shaking, once Kalonia withdrew. 

Leia watched helplessly as her daughter-in-law sobbed, whimpering, “My fault, all my fault, sorry, so sorry,” over and over again. Her mother’s heart aching, feeling useless and frustrated and beyond wretched, Leia continued to hold Dayana’s hand until she’d slipped into another exhausted, restless sleep, tears drying on her cheeks. 

“Kriff,” Leia growled, turning with a hiss when the door opened behind her only to relax a little when Mara stepped in, weariness warring with concern on her face as Dayana cried out again, this time wordlessly, her body shivering. “Tell me they’ve been found.” 

Mara shook her head and grabbed a stool, rolling it over next to her sister-in-law and sinking down onto it with a sigh. “No.” She reached out and touched Dayana lightly on the hip. Mara loved her, too, this woman she’d raised as much as Luke, this woman who’d fought so bravely only to lose so much. “How is she?” 

“She woke up for a bit, asked how long she’d been out.” Leia fussed with the edge of the blanket, feeling every bit of her age. “She didn’t ask about the baby.” 

“She would have felt when…” Mara trailed away at Leia’s oblique look, made a helpless gesture with her hands. “I have to believe there’s a reason.” Mara frowned when Leia hesitated, frowned harder when Leia reached across and picked up the datapad Dr. Kalonia had left behind, tapping on it until whatever it was she wanted came up. She then, wordlessly, handed it over, her expression neutral. 

Mara glanced down, stared, and swallowed hard, her fingers lifting to hesitantly touch the two little beating hearts, fluttering in tandem. “But …” 

Leia’s smile was grim as she laid her hand on Mara’s shoulder. “I think they’re protecting each other already.” 

OoO 

Dayana walked the ways. 

Flash of a man, tumbled hair and wild eyes, reaching out to touch the burnt, mangled mask of his dead grandfather, the forest deep around him. 

_Fear._

A girl, tiny and quick, rapelling down the inside of a star destroyer, prying loose a converter, sand and rust in her eyes. 

_Anger._

Scarred scoundrel’s hand cupping a long, pale, beloved face, regret spearing through his heart more surely than the lightsaber pierced his gut. 

_Hate._

Oblivious to anything but each other, his long fingers stroking her cheek, her smaller ones tracing the edge of an angry scar bisecting his eyebrow as the lovers embraced. She called him Ani in a sweet, lyrical voice as his hand drifted down to cover the huge mound of her belly. 

_Suffering_ . 

He was seventeen, hormones and passion, practice ‘saber nearly forgotten in his hand as he watched her try to catch her breath after their bout, soft, dewy skin, narrowed, focused eyes, her fifteen year old curves inviting and lush and he fumbled as she came at him again, his skin too tight for his bones. 

_Emotion, yet peace._

She was twenty-one and tried to let someone else touch her, tried to feel what it was he’d made her feel so effortlessly, cocky and sure and beautiful, powerful and wanted. The man didn’t ask to stay the night. She did not weep. She did not try again. 

_Ignorance, yet knowledge._

He was twenty-four and she was twenty-two and the Force bond burst into incandescent color and sound between them, vivid and hot, bright and loud, and she laughed and squeezed him, arms and legs and sweet, soft, warm inside and around him, and he understood: she had been, always would be, home. 

_Passion, yet serenity._

She was twenty-six and he was almost twenty-eight and they were not supposed to be meeting like this, it was dangerous, he was dangerous, black cloak and cowl and the damnable mask, and he had her shoved facedown over the table in his shuttle, slick, wet, pounding, grinding ache, missed him so much, loved her so much, always, yours, yours, mine, mine. She’d meant to have a new birth control implant installed, she had. 

_Chaos, yet harmony._

The courtyard fountain burbled cheerfully, the tiles blessedly cool under her sandaled feet as Dayana stepped through the archway into the shade. The two little girls, almost identical and sitting on a bench, smiled at her and beckoned her closer. Dayana sank to her knees before them, lifting a trembling hand to each perfect face, Ben and Leia’s eyes, the jut of Rey and Han’s chin, the plumpness of her own cheeks, hair that was almost but not quite curly, their father’s texture with their mother’s brown and gold color, her daughters, these were her daughters, hers and Ben’s, and she sobbed harshly as she buried her face in between their sturdy little bodies and clung. 

“I’m sorry, my sweet, sweet babies, so sorry. It was my job to protect you, to love you, and I failed you. I failed you and I failed your father and he’s lost. I lost him, my sweet, precious girls, when I lost you.” 

One of the twins laid her tiny hand on Dayana’s head, stroking her hair, while the other burrowed down until she could rub her cheek against Dayana’s. They comforted her, these little girls who would never be hers, smelling of the garden and plasma, humming with the Force, and gradually, gradually Dayana calmed, calmed until she was sitting before the bench, one twin hugging her from behind, the other hugging her from the front, their fingers intertwined in her hair. 

“You have to go soon,” whispered one and Dayana shivered, suddenly cold even in the dappled sunlight. 

“Don’t be afraid,” whispered the other as a shadow moved through the garden, the heavy stomp of Kylo Ren’s boots stifling the gentle sound of the water in the fountain. 

“I love you, my sweet girls,” Dayana murmured, kissing each chubby cheek in turn. Their smiles were blinding as she rose to her feet, her ‘saber suddenly in her hand. 

“You have to save him, Mommy,” one small girl said earnestly as Dayana turned to go, the pounding of the footsteps growing closer, the shadows lengthening to block the sun. 

“He promised to always come back, didn’t he?” the other twin demanded, scowling and grumbling when her sister elbowed her. “Well, he did. And he loves us.” 

“Shut up, you’ll ruin it!” 

“No, you shut up!” 

Dayana left them arguing and wrestling, stepping out of the archway to meet the great, hulking presence waiting for her. 

_Death, yet the Force._


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Don’t think of the baby, don’t think of sticky fingers and your wife’s eyes in your son’s face and a little voice calling you Grampa._ From behind him came a deep-throated, feral snarl, more animal than human and Han hunched his shoulders forward as Luke pleaded, “She’s leading you into a trap! You can’t do this!”

Han slapped the comm twice when it flickered, snarling at Chewbacca when he roared something about delicate equipment. “Shut up, fuzzball, and Luke, this better be good!” Before his brother-in-law could answer, Han cursed, low and heartfelt, Ben’s Upsilon performing a fancy maneuver, using the planet’s moon to slingshot in a way that had Han coaxing a little more speed out of the old bird. She whined and shook and complained but she did what he asked, as she’d always done, and the Upsilon didn’t manage to lose them, though it was a narrow thing. Chewie patted him on the shoulder as Han leaned back, releasing the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in a noisy explosion. 

Only to suck it back in as Luke demanded, “What are you doing?!” His voice was strident, stressed to the point of breaking, and Han grimaced. It had been a battlefield decision, Leia taking charge as Chewbacca and Rey covered their retreat, the First Order troops too many to count and Ben already disappearing around the corner, black robes fluttering like the wings of some great hunting bird. 

“Go with him,” Leia had ordered, every inch the General the Resistance had named her, and he’d kissed her, hard and fast and rough, before pelting after Ben with Chewie, trying not to think about the deep-throated scream of grief and rage Ben had made before he’d slammed a dozen combatants to the ground with some great wave of Force hoodoo, a concussion of power that had shaken the very terra. 

The girl (Yamilet? Zannah?) had stolen Ben’s Upsilon. She’d even blown him an insolent kiss as she ran backwards up the ramp, her sharp face triumphant and sneering, and Han shuddered to remember the bloodied state of her robes. Had she _ripped_ the baby from Dayana? 

_Don’t think of the baby, don’t think of sticky fingers and your wife’s eyes in your son’s face and a little voice calling you Grampa._ From behind him came a deep-throated, feral snarl, more animal than human and Han hunched his shoulders forward as Luke pleaded, “She’s leading you into a trap! You can’t do this!” 

Han was old but he wasn’t a fool, had been on this sort of suicide mission before, and he risked a glance over his shoulder. Ben was not looking at him but out toward the Upsilon, and even as Force-null as Han was, he could feel the pulsing, chaotic waves of energy roiling off of his son, his lush mouth peeled back from his teeth, his knuckles white where they gripped the edge of his seat. 

Luke continued, breathless and urgent and persuasive, “Ben, this isn’t the way. You know it isn’t. Snoke is hoping you’ll kill her, hoping you’ll fall.” 

Han winced as metal screeched and buckled in Ben’s grip, flicking a glance back at the viewport just in time to see the Upsilon veer sharply, wobble, and then disappear into the rushing whine of hyperspace. 

_Fuck._

“She nearly killed my _wife_. She murdered my _child_.” Ben drew in a harsh breath through his nose, his lungs threatening to collapse under the weight of the agony ripping through his chest. Grief was a gravity well, down, down, down, threatening to swallow him, sharp teeth and grating edges, blood on the hands of his oldest friend, Dayana’s end of the bond eerily, painfully, spitefully silent. _Too late, he’d been too late, too sure, too reckless. Everything he loved, gone, flash, boom, death and damage and loss his only legacy._

Too much like Darth Vader, indeed. 

“Be grateful, _Master_ , that I am not blaming _you_.” 

Chewie’s yodel was shock and dismay as Luke made a choking noise. “Kid,” Han warned quietly, swallowing hard when Ben’s fathomless eyes turned on him, glinting amber in the flickering viewport. “Don’t say somethin’ you can’t take back.” 

“No, he…” Luke exhaled, deep and heavy, and his voice cracked. “Please be careful. She can’t take much more.” 

_Dayana._

Ben squeezed his eyes closed and could see only her: 

Cold, lips tight, sweet face set in disapproving lines, watching him hold court in the mess, his voice calling out something lewd so she would blush, so she would look at him. Around him, the others snickered as his stomach squirmed unpleasantly with guilt and something like admiration as she dismissed him, spine straight. 

Sharp and distinct and sassy, her lips quirking as she called him _Solo_ and twirled her ‘saber, eyes bright and wicked, her power calling to him, head, heart, belly. She tasted of sweet summer wine, skin soft as flower petals, surrender like flying, ecstasy like being remade. Laughter like foggy mornings, love like stars, a bond new and unbreakable. 

Pledged to him, promised to him, letting him go, welcoming him back, kissing every scar, every hurt, forgiving every atrocity, reminding him that goodness lived in the galaxy, in him, in the Force, in her. His wife, his mate, his lover, soft body, gentle hands, fierce heart, the possibility of family. 

Then she was gone, a void, a hole, the vast emptiness of dead space, home a place he could no longer call his. 

A sharp beeping broke the silence. “Gotcha,” Han muttered as Chewie made corrections to the navcom. 

The _Falcon,_ homed in on the tracker Han had placed on the ship he’d given to his son for his birthday, made the jump into hyperspace with little fanfare. When the smuggler turned from the viewscreen once more, his smug smirk faded: Kylo Ren stared back at him, calm, implacable, and grim. The vocoder in the mask he’d donned, silver and black, the mask Han didn’t even know he’d brought with him, made his voice hiss unpleasantly. 

“I’ll let nothing stand in my way.” 

OoO 

“I’m going.” 

Dayana stifled a whimper of pain as her abdomen protested the twist of her hips as she glanced over her shoulder, unable to even press a hand to the place where there should be babies because if she did, she was going to break, and she had no time. No time for mourning, no time for pain, no time, either, for the wide eyes and grim set to Rey’s mouth where she stood in the doorway of the supply closet Dayana was currently raiding. 

“No.” The tone wavered, her mouth snapping over the one syllable, the teacher she’d been in the life before the war. Rey, though, was stubborn, stubborn and relentless and every inch her mother’s daughter as she advanced into the room, quick, efficient, graceful steps on the balls of her feet, hazel eyes watchful and narrowing until the two women stood toe to toe, and Dayana couldn’t keep her out, the radiating warmth and light and sunny sweetness that was Rey, Rey who needed to mourn, Rey who needed to love, Rey who needed to help. 

Rey who was holding back pity by the barest thread. 

Dayana’s back and shoulders tightened. Ignoring the low, grinding ache in her barren womb, the flash of rage that made her hands tremble, she went back to packing the rucksack with jerky, automatic motions. 

“You don’t get to tell me no.” Rey’s voice was implacable, her stance immovable, and inside Dayana, fight warred with flight, with the need to go, now, to flee, to find, to fix. 

To burn, to rend, to tear, to devour. 

Dayana shook her head, suddenly dizzy. “Fine.” She swung the pack over a shoulder, avoided slapping Rey with the heavy bag by a narrow margin. “But Finn and whoever else is coming better be ready to go when we get to the hangar.” 

“Yes,” Rey agreed. “They will be.” 

Dayana hesitated only the once, ex-‘trooper Finn buckling himself in, Rey doing the pre-flight check, and Poe Dameron turning to look over his shoulder at her from the pilot’s chair. “We okay, pretty girl?” 

There wasn’t _time_ for the weight of the question in his dark eyes. She could feel the precious seconds and minutes and hours slipping through her fingers, slipping through her fingers as her babies had slipped from her body in a rush of blood and pain, and she closed her eyes and whispered, “Yes.” Because what else was there to say? 

Rey turned in time to watch Dayana’s hand hover over the waist of her robes, hover and then fist, landing on her thigh instead, the knuckles as white as her lips, pressed tight together, and Rey was twelve years old again and the Force was telling her Ben couldn’t _stay_ and Dayana couldn’t _go_ and something _terrible_ was coming. 

But Rey wasn’t twelve any longer, wasn’t a child but a woman, a Jedi, and she was a Solo and she was a Skywalker and she controlled the Force, it did not control her, and closing her eyes, she reached out, power like tendrils of light, and saw the thin, skeletal thing on its throne, looking back toward her, amused and smug and powerful, gloating and sure. _Monster. We will be your end._

_Come, little girl,_ he invited, his power beckoning, dark and dangerous and seductive despite his scarred and emaciated form as it curled and danced and stroked along her own. _Come, and be devoured._

Poe thought Rey was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen as she laughed, sweet and pure. 


End file.
